Those are basically potato chips, not fries
So here, a fun little recipe for steak.
WARNING: This can smoke you out if you don't have a good stove hood. Man your windows, fans, and smoke alarms appropriately.
Ingredients:
1 good steak. You want something about an inch thick, nicely marbled. You're probably not going to get one at your local supermarket, but you don't learn how to cook steak with expensive steak anyway.
A pepper cracker. If you don't have one already, you want one. Get a disposable prefilled one if nothing else.
Kosher salt. Regular salt won't work, it will just burn away.
1 tbsp butter. Real butter, not fake. In a square.
Your favorite oil. I use canola. EDIT: You'll want something with a high smoke point or it'll all just dissapear.
Tools:
Oven
Cast Iron Skillet
Tongs
Really, really good oven mitts.
Prep:
So you've got a thawed steak in your fridge, it's ready to cook, right? Nope, take it out, open it up, and set it aside for 15-30 minutes.
While it's doing that, preheat your oven. How high does it go? Set it to that.
More seriously, you'll want to set your oven to 500F, and a burner on your stovetop to high. (I'm sure you're aware that you're not supposed to set your stovetop to high. In this case, the cast iron skillet can take it.)
Now, take your kosher salt, spread some on the side of the steak facing up. We don't want a coating here, we just want the presence of salt. We're not salting the steak- we just want the salt to help with the juices.
Now crack some pepper on the same side. I prefer less, find out what you like.
Flip the steak over, salt and pepper it the same way.
Brush oil on the top and bottom (NOT the sides) of the steak. This is difficult- if you have too much oil, it flavors the steak and makes it oily. If you have too little oil, heat won't be distributed as well and your steak will charcoal on the outside. Try to wipe the majority off- leave no 'glops' of oil, but leave a solid coat.
Cooking instructions:
To check and see if your skillet is to heat yet, drop a single droplet of oil onto your skillet. If it goes straight past shimmering and dances, it's hot enough. make sure your oven is preheated.
Next, take your steak and drop it in the center of the skillet.
Wait a minute and a half. There will be disturbing amounts of smoke coming out the skillet. This is normal.
Flip the steak.
Wait a minute and a half.
Take you pat of butter and slap it on the middle of your steak. This caramelizes it and gives a nice, nutty flavor.
Get your thickest, best oven mitts on. You're about to pick up 10 pounds of 600 degree cast iron and trying to wrestle it onto your stove rack.
Wrestle it onto your stove rack,.
This next part requires you to know your oven- mine is weirdly shaped and, as such, cooks fast. I can't give you a time here.
But you want the center of the steak to be 115F for rare, 125F for medium rare, and those are the only temperatures that matter
EDIT: A good point of safety info: When you open your oven, there's going to be a huge blast of smoke and heat that will explode straight at your face. You should duck.
Now, take your steak and put it on a warm plate (otherwise you're just sucking all that heat out) and wrap the thing in aluminum foil.
Leave the steak alone. No, seriously, just leave it alone for like 15 minutes. All the juice is squeezing into the center of the steak. Give it some time to let it finish cooking and let the juice redistribute.
After 15 minutes, grab a knife, grab a fork. Put away your ketchup and your steak sauce. This is a steak that's meant to stand alone, and trust me, it will.