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How to grill Delmonico steak? It’s more religion than method. There are competing sects who appear willing to come to death blows over differences of doctrine.

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Makes 4 servings

I’m a meat-religion agnostic; I believe there is more than one right way, and that we can all live together in peace. Except for people who eat their steaks well-done: they should be excommunicated. The how-to I’m laying out here makes use of standard techniques that I find comfortable, intuitive, and successful. Feel free to ask God to reveal a better path to you if you want.

4 Delmonico steaks, approx. 1 lb each^[1]
Olive oil
Salt and pepper OR a steak spice blend such as McCormick Grill Mates Montreal Steak
2 Tbs butter

Prep

1. Take your steaks out of the fridge and let them sit on the counter top as you tend to whatever dinner prep you have to do. (If you want, give them the time they need to come to room temperature.) 2. A lot of recipes will tell you to remove excess fat from your steaks during prep. This is matter of taste, experience, and your butcher.^[2] Fat is currently so frowned upon, that your cow was probably lean to begin with, and your butcher almost certainly trimmed away any excess. It’s rare that I feel I need to trim the fat off the beef I buy. 3. After that, place your steaks on a couple sheets of paper towels, and then place a few more paper towels on top. Press down a little bit to soak up as much moisture as you can. You want these steaks to be flat-out dry.

Charcoal Grilling

If you’re having friends over, you want them to arrive exactly now. Train them.

4. Allow the coals time to develop a light coating of ash, with a hypnotic, alluring, vibrant red glow underneath.

It’s surprising how much seasoning it takes to season a steak. Consider this to be a minimum starting point.
For a thick steak, I might want twice as much as this.

5. When the coals are ready for your steaks, rub the grill with oil. Then, season the steaks generously with salt and pepper or a spice blend. Once you’ve seasoned them, immediately toss the steaks on the grill, directly over the coals. When it comes to flipping them, I like to use a multi-tool that is like a spatula and tongs all-in-one. Flip them once, flip them intermittently, or constantly … flip them as you stand up, sit down, genuflect, kneel; I don’t care. No matter which tenet you embrace, someone from one of the other camps will verbally crucify you when they see what you’re doing. God once came to me in a dream and told me to leave the steaks alone at first, for a long time, with the intention of flipping them only once. But he didn’t exactly write it in stone, so I don’t judge you sinners who do otherwise. 6. Test your steaks with an instant-read thermometer or temperature probe and cook them to your liking. I will take a stand when it comes to a temperature probe. Anything other method of steak-testing is blasphemy, Gnosticism, or full-on witchcraft. It doesn’t take long to cook even a massive steak; start testing at about 8-10 minutes. Once they’re done, remove them to a platter, top each one with ½ Tbs butter if you wish, tent them loosely with foil, and let them rest for five minutes.

Camping

Try this sometime: get your campfire nice and hot, and let it form a base of red-hot coals. Cut your steak into bite-size pieces and toast it, piece by piece, one bite at a time, over the coals the way you would a marshmallow. It takes less than a minute per bite to produce a hot, crusty exterior and warm, moist interior. If you’re using metal marshmallow prongs, be aware that the metal will transmit heat directly into the center of your bite, so if you want your bite rare, lean toward less time. If you’re using a thin stick made of green wood that you’ve whittled into a poker, it will take longer to cook your bite, but hell yeah!

Eat each bite as is, or have a few dipping sauces on hand. A couple of beers, or some wine, maybe a few mushrooms or red bell peppers that you can grill in a similar manner, and you have a fantastic camping meal.

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Notes:

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