The oven is a perfect choice for cooking any meat. The problem here is achieving the desired doneness, as you can guess. But with a bunch of tips, you can get the most out of any oven to cook any piece of meat. Because a world with tender and juicy steaks is possible.
Rack positions
Height is important for any recipe in the oven, and cooking meat is no exception. Choose the height of the trays carefully. In fact, it is a must for a juicy result and the desired doneness.
Do: Place the oven rack or tray in the centre of the oven, and adjust the height if you want to grill the meat until it is golden brown. You can use the top as a broiler too. Anyway, it doesn’t take the same time to cook a two-inch meat cut than a roast beef or ribs.
Don’t: keep the same height during the cooking process, even when you can clearly see that the top of the meat is turning dark brown, but you know it is still raw inside. You can put some aluminium foil on top too to prevent this. Do not put the meat on the top rack from the very beginning either. Also, if you know your oven and when it heats more or less, depending on the type of dish or height, think about it and try to apply it to every recipe to avoid disasters.
Oven accessories to make your life easier
Use the trays and racks you have in the oven. A deep tray is perfect for roasting meat or fish. And if you have a good rack, all the better, because you can cook meat like a pro.
Do: Utensils are there to help us. Choose the best for your recipes, sauces, etc. If you want a crispy result, choose the rack because the heat will be in direct contact with the recipe. By the way, if you love cooking, buy a good knife. It makes things a lot easier.
Don’t: if you think the recipe you are about to cook is going to be very juicy, do not choose a rack. The result will be dry meat, and cleaning the oven will turn into a real adventure, except if you have pyrolysis or something close to that.
Cooking time
Most of the ovens have preset programmes for cooking. You can even choose the programme by selecting the weight of the meat cut and the desired doneness. It may look like the height of being lazy in the kitchen, but it is also really convenient, and you can put your culinary efforts to work in other parts of the recipe.
Do: Follow the oven's instructions and relax about temperature and time, allowing the oven to do the hard work. From time to time, check that everything is going well inside. That’s all.
Don’t: It is an oven, not an AI robot. If you have a modern oven, you may not need to be in front of it all the time, but it is good to keep an eye on it once in a while. Perhaps you have made a mistake choosing the weight, or something is not going completely well during the cooking process, so just be sure every 15 minutes or so that everything is working fine.
Cleaning the oven
Last but not least, cleaning the oven is the key to making a good steak or any other meat cut in the oven. Not only because of hygiene but also because if there is any remaining ingredient from previous recipes, the flavour of the meat or the whole recipe can change.
Do: Clean the oven after each use. Especially if you have cook plates like fish or sauce that have fallen to the bottom the last time you used them. It is also a good way to keep the oven working for longer (years).
Don’t: Don’t wait to clean the oven until it is really dirty, recipe after recipe. When you finally decide to do it, the cleaning will be like hell. Most of your recipes will get weird flavours from other meals. And when there are small pieces of ingredients at the bottom, like after cooking a pizza, it could be really fun to turn it on and see how they burn and your kitchen gets full of smoke.