Courteney Cox’s Recipe for the Perfect Steak – A few months ago I came across a video of actor Courteney Cox sharing her favorite recipe for steak on Instagram.
The “Friends” actor said she got the recipe from musician Brandi Carlile — and it seemed pretty easy to follow. She used just a few ingredients, including freshly ground coffee and truffle oil. She also didn’t use precise measurements, which is often how I like to cook.
I was especially curious to try the recipe since many steak purists say the best way to season a steak is just salt and pepper.
Here’s how it went.
First, I drizzled my rib-eye steak with truffle oil and then I layered on the seasonings
Cox suggests using New York or rib-eye steaks, so I went with a 1-inch thick rib eye.
I drizzled a generous amount of truffle oil (which she notes in the Instagram caption can also be olive oil) on one side and proceeded to coat the steak with finely ground coffee, brown sugar, coarse salt, and pepper.
I then did the same to the other side.
Once both sides were fully coated with the ingredients, I used a spoon to press the seasonings into the meat.
This isn’t really a recipe you can mess up — you can kind of coat the steak as much as you want with these ingredients.
I don’t have a grill, so I used a grill pan and oven to cook the steak
In the video, Cox said to grill the thick steaks for about two or three minutes on each side. Since I didn’t have a big grill, I used an oven-safe grill pan on high heat.
I used drops of water to test if my pan was hot enough. Once the water sizzled as it touched the pan I knew I was ready to add my steak.
I seared the steak on each side for about two minutes. I then placed the oven-safe grill pan into a preheated oven at 425 degrees Fahrenheit to finish the steak. I kept it in the oven for five minutes.
The steak came out perfectly and the seasoning was delicious.
The sear allowed for the coating to really stick to the steak, giving it a nice, caramelized crust. It also sealed the juices into the steak before I finished it off in the oven.
I thought that the coffee flavor would overpower everything, but it really just tempered the sweetness of the brown sugar and amplified the flavor of the steak overall.
I am a huge fan of truffles, so I enjoyed the flavor of the truffle oil. That said, given how strong the flavors of the sugar and coffee were, I think this recipe would’ve been equally as good with olive oil.
The salt seemed to really balance out the sweet, slightly bitter taste of the sugar and coffee.
I also had my boyfriend, who doesn’t drink coffee, taste the steak. Even he appreciated the flavor it added in combination with the sugar, oil, and salt.
I would definitely make this steak again the same way.
