TO REST OR NOT TO REST…

Perhaps more than any other meat, Steak generates reams of information on how best to cook your perfect steak; should you Sous-vide, grill, pan fry or cook it on the stone. Regardless of what cut of steak you cook and how you cook it, you will nearly always hear that you should rest your steak after cooking.

The main reason you’ll find for resting Steak is that when cooking traditionally as the surface of the meat hits the hot pan (or grill), the juices in that surface are forced away towards the centre, increasing the concentration of moisture in the middle of the steak. Once the steak gets flipped over, the same thing happens on the other side. The centre of the steak becomes supersaturated with liquid—there’s more liquid in there than it can hold on to—so when you slice it open, all that extra liquid pours out. By resting the steaks, you allow all that liquid that was forced out of the edges and into the centre, time to migrate back out to the edges.

When cooking on the stone, the main difference is that you’re effectively cooking each mouthful individually. When you’re cooking on super-heated lava stone as you sear and seal the outside of the steak all the moisture gets trapped inside the steak and for each slice or mouthful the same thing happens. So, whereas traditionally you let a steak rest so you don’t get the juices flowing around on your plate, with SteakStones the moisture always remains trapped inside the Steak, leading to every bite being more succulent than other methods of cooking.

This means that no matter what cut of Steak you choose, the result, when cooked on the stone will be more succulence as very little moisture is lost in the cooking process and the rest remains trapped inside every last, delicious bite.