The Best Way to Sear a Rib-Eye Steak for Labor Day

John Willoughby was for a long time the executive editor of Gourmet magazine and, for a longer time than that, the chef Chris Schlesinger’s writing partner on a series of cookbooks that celebrated the transformative powers of cooking over live fire. On the long list of people who’ve taught me about cooking and food, restaurants and people, Doc — as he’s known — sits near the top.

For instance: “There are only about 11 recipes in the world.” Doc said that once, and I’ve never been able to contradict him. You can roast something. You can steam it. You can fry it. You can turn it into soup or a pasta dish. Nearly everything tacos. You may discover an excellent recipe today, but you’re rarely going to run into something well and truly new.

That’s probably true of reverse-searing. It’s the process of cooking a steak slowly in a warm oven, then finishing it over high heat on a grill or plancha. And lots of people have recipes for that. My old colleague Kenji López-Alt has been reverse-searing for years. The barbecue king Steven Raichlen does it, too.

But no matter how many times I do it myself, it feels new. I think that’s because reverse-searing is not a recipe so much as it is a counseling session, one that replaces the anxiety of cooking an expensive cut of meat with the thrill of experiencing the delicious.

Reverse-searing is a home-cooking technique. Restaurant cooks don’t have time to cook steaks for 20 minutes in a low oven before they grill them. But that doesn’t mean reverse-searing doesn’t scale. For a dinner party, you can get three or four big rib-eyes onto a sheet pan for the oven, and fit the same number on most any grill that’s not one of those tiny novelty ones painted to look like a football helmet.

Coat the meat in a dry rub, if you like: Montreal steak seasoning, say, or a Cajun blackening situation. I go with kosher salt alone and revel in the beefiness it underscores. You’ll get a great crust regardless and, beneath it, a fantastically textured interior. Every time. And if you’ve spent a pretty penny on the meat that you’re cooking, that’s a very good feeling.

You’ll need a digital instant-read thermometer. This is nonnegotiable. (Wirecutter has a guide to the best ones.) You’ll use it to track the internal temperature of your steak so you can get it out of the oven at precisely the right moment. For me, that’s about 112 degrees. It’ll take somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to 30 minutes. But don’t use the clock as your guide. Mind Mr. Thermometer instead.

Let the steak rest for another 20 minutes or so while you get your grill going and then finish the meat when everything’s ripping hot, maybe 90 seconds a side, until the thermometer shows you something in the low 120s for rare. Give it a short rest, and you’ll be off to the races.