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Reverse Seared T-Bones with Grilled Corn
10 min, plus 2 days dry brine
45 min
Serves: 4 to 6
Steps
- Two days ahead. Salt the steaks heavily on both faces and all edges. More than feels right. Set them on a wire rack over a sheet pan and leave them uncovered in the fridge for 48 hours. The salt works its way in and the surface dries out, which is what lets them brown later.
- 45 minutes before you cook, pull the steaks out and leave them on the counter, still on the rack. Do not salt them again. That job is done.
- Rub the corn with the softened butter and wrap each ear in foil.
- Preheat. All burners on high, lid closed, a full 15 minutes. Preheat is the whole game on a gas grill, which sears by conduction off the bars rather than by radiant heat. Put the foil wrapped corn on the warming rack right now, at the start of the preheat while every burner is still running. This is the step that is easy to get wrong.
- Set the zones. On a three burner grill, kill the left and center burners and leave the right one on high. That right burner is your sear zone and it stays high from here to the end.
- Pat the steaks dry, then lay them across the left and center grates, over the dead burners. Lid down.
- Probe two of them. Go in from the front edge of the steak and push the probe straight back into the strip, the big lobe, tip in the middle of the muscle and at least half an inch clear of the bone. The cable exits toward you and drapes over the front rail, never touching a grate bar. Point the tenderloin, the small lobe, away from the lit burner. Set the alarms to 112°F.
- At around 105°F, turn the center burner to high as well. Three T-bones will not fit on one burner's width, and cast iron needs a few minutes to load up.
- At 112°F, take all three steaks off onto a tray. Pat every surface dry again. Twenty five minutes under a closed lid puts moisture back on the outside, and this is the difference between a crust and a gray steak. Wipe a thin film of oil onto the meat, not onto the grate.
- Sear. Lid open from here on. Put the steaks down on the right and center sections, on grate you have not used yet, tenderloin lobes still angled away from the fire. 90 seconds, untouched. Flip once. 90 seconds. Stand them on the fat edge for 30 seconds, propped against each other. If flames climb around a steak, slide it left for 15 seconds and bring it back.
- Pull at 120°F to 125°F in the strip for medium rare. They will not all get there together, so take each one when it is ready. Rest on a wire rack, not a board, for 8 to 10 minutes.
- While they rest, unwrap the corn and roll it over the center burner for 3 to 4 minutes until it blisters in spots.
- Carve. Cut the strip and the tenderloin off the bone in one piece each, slice both against the grain, then lay the slices back around the bone. Scatter flaky salt across the cut faces and serve.
Notes
- Probe the strip, never the tenderloinThe tenderloin runs 5°F to 8°F ahead of the strip for the whole cook. Aim for 120 there and the strip is still sitting at 112, which leaves half the steak raw. The bone lies too. It conducts faster than muscle, so a tip resting against it reads high and you pull early.
- Front to back, not side to sideComing in from the side puts the cable over the fire or forces you through the bone to reach the strip. Entering from the front edge solves both at once, and the front rail is the coolest place on the grill to park a cable.
- With two probes, bracket the spreadOn a grill with the burners running front to back, the heat gradient is left to right. Probe the steak nearest the lit burner and the one farthest from it, and the third steak lands somewhere between them.
- The corn timingOn the warming rack the corn sits at roughly 250°F to 300°F, which is a gentle steam rather than a roast. Starting it with the steaks gives it about 25 minutes and it comes out underdone. Starting it at the preheat gives it closer to 40, and the first 15 of those happen with every burner on high. If the corn ends up too soft for you, put it on 5 minutes into the preheat instead of at the very start.
