Awesomely Tender Baked Strip Steaks

I hardly ever cook a steak.  I love steak, but the truth is ... I have a fear of gas grills!  When I was growing up, we had an indoor grill.  That was awesome!  I think my fear started when I had my first apartment.  We had an ancient two or three burner gas stove, and the pilot would constantly go out.   I always left the lighting to one of my roommates - don't know what I would have done without him - probably moved!  LOL  You may think my fear is irrational, but indulge me for a moment ...

A few years back, when I was living in New Orleans, I was walking from the parking lot to the office one morning, and as I was at an intersection, and while I was directly in front of his car, some idiot decided it was a good idea to jump the red light and hit me, throwing me up onto his windshield.  After checking to make sure all of my parts were intact, I had to laugh when I realized that I was still holding onto my Dunkin Donuts coffee.  Just goes to show what a Dunkin Junkie I am.  I didn't spill a drop!

Anyhow, later that day, I was speaking to my Mom and told her about my close encounter with the Grim Reaper.  What was her response?  She lit the gas grill and it exploded!!  That told me two things: 1) No matter what I do, she will always be able the "one up" me; 2) There is a rational reason to fear the grill!!  She  was fine, but was afraid the house would go up and had to call the fire department because the grill is a hard line rather than having a tank.  Fortunately, the gas inside the house is on a different line!  See!!  I will continue to leave the grilling to others when at all possible. 

Sooooo, I wanted to "bake" a few steaks for dinner the other night.  I looked online to check around for temps and times and the first thing I came to was a recipe posted on eHow.  It suggested marinating the steaks in a combination of olive oil, soy sauce, and Grill Mates Montreal Steak Seasoning.  Sounded good to me!  I did not use as much of anything as listed - I used less olive oil and just polished off what was left in the Soy Sauce and the Grill Mates.  Here's what they recommended:

INGREDIENTS :

1/2 c olive oil

4 T soy sauce

4 t Grill Mates® Montreal Steak Seasoning

I added about 1t garlic powder

I trimmed most of the fat off the steaks, then put them in a zip-top bag and gave them each two good whacks on either side with a meat mallet.  Then I poured in the marinade, squeezed out the air, zipped the bag closed and commenced smushing.  You want to make sure your steaks are well coated.  I threw them in the fridge and let them marinate for about an hour and a half before taking them out to come to room temp.  You never want to put your meat directly in the oven from the fridge - it will seize up on you and be tough.  

When it came to time and temp, the sites I looked at all said something different.  Thinking back to how tender my Beef Tenderloin at Christmas was, I definitely didn't want to put them in at 450!!  I opted to sear them off on the stove (3" on each side), then top them with a little butter and finish them off in the oven at 325.  Why the butter?  Pretty much because it was sitting right there on the counter waiting for me to start my veggies.  Besides, I had garlic in my marinade, and don't most steak houses douse their steaks in garlic butter?  Worked for me.

Because I didn't sear them for as long as most recipes call for (I wanted to make sure they had some nice color but weren't dry), and I was cooking them at a lower temp, I assumed I would need to cook them longer.  Not so!  When I checked them at the recommended 30", they were well done.  I would have preferred mine to be a little pink.  There were only two of us for dinner that night.  I like mine mid-rare, and he looks for something in the vicinity of shoe leather, so these worked out perfectly.  They were tender and juicy enough for me not to have cared at all that they were on the well side, and he was thrilled that he didn't see any trace of pink or red but  didn't need a saw to cut them!  When the whole gang is around, we usually pull a few off the grill to rest while the others die a slow death.