This is how you grill your meat the very best

Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: this is how you grill your meat the absolute best.

Say goodbye to the mac ’n’ cheese and that eternal tomato soup from a pack (sorry Sharon…). Do you want to serve a restaurant-quality entrecôte, a fantastic steak de boeuf, or an insane flat iron steak make? With these tips, you grill your meat like the very best Argentine restaurants do.

Sorry vegetarians, but the smell of meat on the grill awakens the primal human in us. When the grill pan is sizzling or the barbecue is glowing, that seductive aroma of fat, meat, herbs, and hot coals goes straight to the reptilian brain. This has nothing to do with calories and nutritional values; this is about EATING. Is your mouth watering as you read this? Then get to work with these tips and serve restaurant-quality steaks tonight.

Cold meat
Are you taking your steak out of the fridge just before grilling? Wrong, wrong, wrong. Let it sit at room temperature for half an hour beforehand, and you'll have a much better steak.

Drying
Pat the meat dry with paper towels. It doesn't matter if you get your meat from the supermarket or the butcher (although: you shouldn't look for the real quality steak at the discount places), but the meat always feels a bit moist. Drying it off means better grilling.

Salt and pepper, yes and no
Whole books have been written about this, and wars have been fought over it. Salting beforehand draws moisture out of the meat, they say, and sprinkling pepper over your meat beforehand means you'll be eating burnt peppercorns. Follow your own primal instinct here, or experiment to find out what works best for you.

Pro grid
This is how it always looks in cookbooks: a steak with such a nice grid pattern. Turn the meat a quarter turn after a few minutes on the grill, and you'll have those beautiful stripes too.

Don't poke it
Poking the steak? Such a shame. Juices run out of the meat, your piece becomes dry, never do it again.

Long wait
How long should your meat stay on the grill? That depends on the type of meat and the thickness. Ask your butcher for advice and keep a close eye on it. A grayish steak, completely overcooked, tastes like a pack of printer paper, so keep it juicy and pink-red. Feel, push, and experiment. Are you making a steak? Let it rest for a bit after cooking, wrapped in aluminum foil.