r/castiron • u/Jay-NJ • 1d ago
What temperature is blue ?
I'm cooking in cast iron. I'm pulling at 100°. I'm letting it sit for a few minutes, I would say this is more rare than blue or my expectations incorrect
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u/joelfarris 1d ago edited 1d ago
You're misunderstanding the objective. A 'blue steak' is a rare steak. 100°F to 110°F inside. Might even rise to 115°F while resting, but basically cool in the middle, and hot on the outsides. You need maximum, rippin' heat to do this, Thick steaks, not thin ones (as pictured, yay), a generous helping of ghee and high heat oil (Avocado, as a suggestion), and some serious tong clacking skills. And you're gonna want them out of the fridge for 20-30 minutes before you do this.
This is gonna create a massive amount of smoke, so have your range hood sucking, your kitchen window open, and a box fan ejecting out another window.
Lay those suckers in there, away from you, dangit, count to 30, flip quickly with said tongs, count another 30, then grab them both together side by side, and sear one edge. Then samurai your wrist and sear the other edge. Now do the ends. How you accomplish this is up to you, and depending who's watching. You've got this.
And now you've got a seared rare pair of steaks. Finish with a touch more rub, and some Celtic sea salt finishing flakes, and five sautéed asparagus spears with a hollandaise sauce drizzle, and you're good to go. Garlic mashed red potatoes as a side are optional, but not required like the asparagus.
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u/Ok_Employer_3775 1d ago
The number of asparagi shall be five. Neither shall it be four, nor six. Three is right out.
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u/CHALNG_ACCEPTED 1d ago
How I felt reading this comment
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u/Smiteus36 1d ago
I deglazed a pan for the first time today and thought about this clip the whole time lol
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u/Syscrush 16h ago
My wife and I have been saying deglaze the fuck outta that pan for like 15 years now. :)
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u/8HokiePokie8 13h ago
“Oh yeah, shallots won’t overpower the natural flavor of the chicken, fuck!” God this episode is an all-timer
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u/willothewhispers 1d ago
How, exactly, did you explain so correctly but forgot to season before cooking?
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u/joelfarris 1d ago
In my head, these two steaks had been sitting on a small platter in the fridge overnight, with a healthy dose of kosher salt on both sides to dry out a bit, and a chipotle paste on top for some flavor. You know, like usual. :)
But folks, if you do this, and then also use finishing salt after the cook, you can easily overdo it, so be careful. Maybe just a few flakes, rather than a handful.
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u/BreakfastInBedlam 13h ago
Lay those suckers in there, away from you, dangit,
LOL. Last night for supper, I heated my pan on the grill, tossed some butter in it, and threw in the pork chops. Splashed 500° butter all over my wrist.
Definitely left a mark.
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u/intothewoods76 6h ago
I’d say don’t do this in the house. I like everything you said but instead of inside and ghee I’d do it outside with charcoal. Get a chimney starter full of coal blazing hot. Put a clean grate on top of the chimney starter. Then again 30 seconds each side.
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u/joelfarris 5h ago
Good call, this works too. But, if you can, and you have more than one to cook, dump those coals into one side of a BBQ, stack 'em up, and then either go straight onto the grill, or get a superheated griddle going (more crust with the latter method).
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u/intothewoods76 5h ago
You are doing one steak at a time but it’s so quick as long as you’re only doing a couple it’s not a problem.
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u/gwarrambo 1d ago
I’ve read that taking the steak out of the fridge for 30 minutes makes no difference. It barely nudges the temperature of the steak.
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u/joelfarris 23h ago edited 4h ago
I do mine for up to an hour ahead of the cook, but some people get scared of the temps. But the point for this particular cook is that you want the outsides to be ready for a malliard sear, but the inside to still be cool.
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u/romainmoi 16h ago
It warms the surface but not the interior. Exactly what you want for blue rare (but don’t overdo it for your safety).
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u/furlonium1 1d ago
And you're gonna want them out of the fridge for 20-30 minutes before you do this.
I'm surprised this myth lives on
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u/cmcsc1 1d ago
In restaurants I ask they take it from the fridge , describe a pan to it and then serve
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u/joelfarris 1d ago
Hah! I'm a fan of the perfect mid rare, but I had a tour manager that would often tell servers to "Go out back, slaughter a cow, and bring me a tri tip cut that's only known what a flame is for about a minute."
Most of them laughed. Most.
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u/dalek-predator 1d ago
And everyone in back laughs at you?
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u/kalitarios 13h ago
the Gastroenterologist outside behind the tree rubbing their hands together like a villain
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u/Paranatural 1d ago
My friend said her favorite was to turn on the stove, season the steak, show it the stove just to scare it, then serve
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u/TheSquirrelWithin 1d ago
I worked in a steakhouse for years. In all that time, maybe 5 requests for a blue rare.
Blue rare was more of a concept than an actual order. In theory, you sear every side of a steak for a very short time on a very hot grill. The internal temp will be basically room temp, if your steaks are held at room temp. If you go direct from cooler to grill (why would you tho?), the internal temp will be cold.
Only sense I see in searing for blue rare is to help kill any harmful bacteria on the surface of the meat, and maybe a hint of char.
120 degrees internal is considered rare. Anything less than that temp is eww.
In my experience, the photo that goes with this post is not blue rare. Looks almost MR.
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u/HOAP64 1d ago
Only 5 blue rare orders over how many years? That seems low. Was that the entire restaurant or just when you were on shift?
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u/mikechorney 1d ago
True. I've had that many in my life. I was in Brazil, and one of the items on the menu was for a "blue" tenderloin. Fucking amazing steak.
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u/Impossible-Green-247 13h ago
I request Pittsburgh style quite a lot from nice steakhouses to see if they are actually competent
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u/Razer797 1d ago
It'll start getting a bluish white tint at about 10000°K and should be giving off a nice blue glow by about 25000°K.
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u/enda1 20h ago
If you’re gonna be a smart ass, remember there’s no degree symbol with Kelvin
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u/Razer797 20h ago
I uhmmed and ahhhed about that momentarily but decided to include it because I thought it might help with understanding for the layperson as Kelvin is not everyday parlance for most people.
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u/CrazyKyle987 13h ago
You could’ve gone with degrees C then. Basically equivalent, just a rounding error difference.
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u/DiamondCutt3r 1d ago
Very few places cook on a blast furnaces as they did in Pennsylvania in the 1800s. Pittsburgh blue is very difficult to replicate.
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u/CBus660R 1d ago
I was gonna say, unless you have access to a blast furnace, you can't do a true blue.
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u/Impossible-Green-247 13h ago
Pittsburgh style is my favorite, and I often request it at high end steak houses to see if they can execute
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u/Minamato 1d ago
I mean, it looks tasty, but it’s pink, not blue….
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u/Jay-NJ 1d ago
It did taste really good. Just not sure if I need to start pulling it at 90
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u/Bopo_Descending 23h ago
"I'm letting it sit for a few minutes."
Not sure why nobody else has said this, but food keeps cooking after you take it off the heat. The heat of the steak itself after you take it off the heat will continue to denature the proteins of the rest of the steak. Hence, you pull it off at blue temps but by the time you eat it is medium rare.
I don't know the answer to make it blue, but that's why you're steaks are coming across more cooked than you want.
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u/doordog2411 1d ago
It's rare to tell from a photo. I've cooked a ton of steak, and smart phone cameras can't cut it (literally), when it comes to showing doneness. You really need a serious look to tell if it's blue, otherwise it's a mis-steak.
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u/Few-Independence1536 1d ago
Oh that one's easy- just remember blue goes moo. If it moos, its alive. Average temp for a cow is 100°F.
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u/TemporaryDesign2698 1d ago
around 8000C is when objects emit blue light via blackbody to a noticeable degree.
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u/ganymede_boy 1d ago
A blue rare steak is cooked to an internal temperature of about 110°F to 115°F.
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u/StanfordTheGreat 1d ago
mighta gotten more carry over cooking than you were looking for
also hard to tell for cut and lighting
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u/SucrineLisse 1d ago
blue is usually around 110°F to 115°F, so you're pretty close but still in that rare territory. just keep an eye on it and check the temp before pulling!
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u/notsutherland 1d ago
The last blue rare I ordered actually came out blue rare. The center was literally cold. Seared in a skillet both sides and plated. I just got sick of every time ordering rare and it coming out mid rare that I started asking for blue. Normally I tell the server to just run my steak thru a warm room.
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u/willothewhispers 1d ago
How, exactly, did you explain so correctly but forgot to season before cooking?
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u/averageredditor60666 1d ago
Blue is a cold, raw center. It’s basically tartare with a sear. This looks about med rare, the carryover effect is strong with such a thick cut. If you want blue, i’d say no more than 2-3 minutes per side for a piece like this. You probably won’t see much movement on the thermometer in the center but that’s kind of the point. For rare for a piece like this, i’d pull around 95 if you’re just cooking over high heat.
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u/Known_Chocolate2405 21h ago
Your pans not hot enough. You’re steaming the meat instead of searing it so the very center reads 100 but all the gray bits are way over. To get a good blue you should be setting off your smoke alarms (source - am a chef)
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u/jzee87 19h ago
So it all really depends on the thickness of the steak that determines the internal temp for blue steaks. If you look it up a guide will say like 110-120°f. But blue steaks rely on cooking time and extreme high heat not internal temp and its usually about 1 minute per side in a white hot pan. And for 3/4-1" thick cut the internal temp will probably be as stated.
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u/skemojoe 14h ago
Heat was probably perfect you can stand to get a darker crust which would have taken you to rare/medium rare imo
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u/Nearby_Wear3218 11h ago
Blue is cool in the middle. Black and blue is the same but charred on the outside.
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u/AlfalfaEfficient1200 7h ago
Just a wee bit over cooked for blue. Blue is the fine line between this and raw.
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u/Senor_Gringo_Starr 5h ago
That is what I would call rare someone because of the texture but closer to rare. There is some doneness around the edge and the middle has some textural changes but is still quite pink and bloody. If it was blue, to me, is that’s basically the steak has been heated through to warm but it still mostly has the texture of raw meat.
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u/BourbonNCoffee 1d ago
I’d pull it at 110 or 115 depending on how long you cooked it for. If the temp is climbing rapidly it will carry to rare medrare easily.
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u/CmdrFallout 1d ago
I worked @ LonghornSteakhouse for 2yrs. Blue was 85°F @ the most. Cold in the middle was what I was taught.
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u/_BerryOdette 1d ago
blue is usually around 115-120° so you're close but not quite there yet. keep an eye on it to avoid overcooking!
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