Baking a rib eye in the oven

Question

I saw a video on Facebook the other day...and it was about seasoning a steak...(it didn't say what kind,)..... but I will be using a rib eye. after seasoning it says to bake in the oven until it reaches 125°. the video didn't give the oven temperature......I like mine done (no red)...my husband likes his about like what a cave man would have fixed.... (he always asks for Med. Rare in a restaurant.)...anyhow, my question is what temp should my oven be on to bake the steaks at? I have an internal thermometer for roasts and such.

Answer 1

This cannot be answered simply, the time a steak or roast takes in the oven varies wildly depending on size of the meat, how long it was seared before putting it into the oven, what kind of oven you have, what oven setting you use...

The best bet is to buy a thermometer to stick into the steak so you can measure the temperature. I normally only make a roast beef (somewhere between 1 and 2 kilos) in the oven, so I set my oven to 160 degrees Celsius and during the time it takes to heat up, I sear the beef on all sides in a pan at a high temperature. Then I put it into the oven and bake it for three quarters of an hour and then measure for the first time (at that point it's normally 30 degrees Celsius) and then lower the temperature of the oven (by ten degrees or so, do so again offer 15 to 20 minutes) and measure again every ten minutes. Now I like my beef cave-man-style too, so I turn the oven off when the beef is 50 degrees Celsius in the thickest part and leave it in the closed oven for another ten minutes.

There are probably some temperature scales to be found on the net, but to my knowledge everything between 50 and 60 degrees is from medium rare to medium and above 70 (could be more) or so it is well done.

But take care at some point the temperature inside is going to rise more quickly (above 40 to 45).

Answer 2

I do beef roasts at 200 deg F with a remove reading thermometer set for 125. This gives me a nice hot red center. I've never tried it with a steak, but it might work if it's thick enough.

Once it's up to temp, drop it in a very hot skillet to sear and brown both sides.

For well done, internal temp of 165, I think. Try 150 and see if that meets your desires. It's easier to refire than to undo overcooking :)

Bon appetite

Ed

Answer 3

It sounds like this question is asking about a "reverse sear" technique, though no searing is mentioned. But I assume the steak will be seared either before or after baking (i.e., roasting). Personally, I'd recommend searing after, but either can work.

The oven temperature is a trade-off in flavor/tenderness and evenness vs. time. If you have a lot of time and if you want the most evenly done steaks, cook at the lowest safe temperature your oven will allow. (For American ovens, this is typically 170F.) Depending on the thickness of your steaks, at 170F, it may take your steaks an hour or two to get to 125F in the center. The low roasting will effectively do a bit of an accelerated "dry aging" of the meat, concentrating the flavors and tenderizing it (especially making the fat more "melt-in-your-mouth"), sort of like what you see in a good quality prime rib. If you like your steak closer to well-done, this tenderization process may be even more useful than if you wanted medium-rare.

You can use higher oven temperatures to cook the steaks faster, but they will produce a greater "gradient" in the meat for your husband's "medium-rare" steak, where the outer layers are closer to well-done while the inner layers are still rare. However, you could easily go up to 250F or so to cut down on time significantly without a huge change in results (other than losing some of the tenderizing effect).

To cook two steaks this way, one to medium-rare and one to well-done, you'd have to put the "well-done" one in quite a bit before the medium-rare one. And you'd want it to reach a much higher internal temperature before searing (exactly what temperature depends on your doneness preference, but probably at least 145-150F).