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Most of us have a Gordon Ramsay-style idea of how to cook a steak: take it out of the fridge, salt it, wait a little, and fry it in a sizzling pan, basting it in butter. Then let it rest.

Hey, I’m not against that. I’ve tried his method and loved it. 

But according to some culinary experts, there’s a counterintuitive way to cook a perfectly medium-rare steak that’s got a rich brown crust from edge to juicy edge. And it’s known as “reverse searing”. 

What is reverse searing? 

When cooking steak, most people expect to sear the protein at the start, when it comes into contact with a very hot pan. The rest of the cooking is done at a lower temperature to allow the meat to actually cook.

But “reverse searing”, well, reverses that. 

You slowly, gently cook the steak at first, then sear it at the end. The idea is to avoid that brown-outside, raw-middle problem that happens all too often with “regular” searing. 

It also ensures the middle is evenly cooked. And because a nearly-cooked steak is drier than a raw one, reverse-seared steaks have less moisture, according to chef and food writer J Kenji López-Alt, which means that achieving a satisfying crust is much easier.

And lastly, as the enzymes that have been paralysed by your fridge have had a chance to get back into play by the time you’re ready to sizzle your “reverse-seared” steak, it’ll likely turn out more tender.

Does it work for all steaks? 

Reverse searing works best for thick steaks. “Ribeye, New York, and filet mignon are great cuts that would provide great results in reverse searing,” chef Sam Shafer told The Takeout.

And writing for Serious Eats, López-Alt wrote that the method is best used on steaks thicker than 3.8-5 cm. 

Reverse-searing steak recipe

The steps are pretty simple. 

• Take your steak out of the fridge, season it, and put it in the oven at anywhere from 93-135°C. The higher the temp, the more “done” your steak will be. 
• Wait ’til it’s just under your ideal temperature (54°C for a medium-rare steak, and 60°C for a medium steak). The time this takes will depend on the thickness of your steak; it can be 20-40 minutes.
• Take it out of the oven and put it into a ripping hot pan with oil. Cook until seared all over.

Another bonus? You don’t have to rest reverse-seared steaks (I’m sold).

Most of us have a Gordon Ramsay-style idea of how to cook a steak: take it out of the fridge, salt it, wait a little, and fry it in a sizzling pan, basting it in butter. Then let it rest.

Hey, I’m not against that. I’ve tried his method and loved it. 

But according to some culinary experts, there’s a counterintuitive way to cook a perfectly medium-rare steak that’s got a rich brown crust from edge to juicy edge. And it’s known as “reverse searing”. 

What is reverse searing? 

When cooking steak, most people expect to sear the protein at the start, when it comes into contact with a very hot pan. The rest of the cooking is done at a lower temperature to allow the meat to actually cook.

But “reverse searing”, well, reverses that. 

You slowly, gently cook the steak at first, then sear it at the end. The idea is to avoid that brown-outside, raw-middle problem that happens all too often with “regular” searing. 

It also ensures the middle is evenly cooked. And because a nearly-cooked steak is drier than a raw one, reverse-seared steaks have less moisture, according to chef and food writer J Kenji López-Alt, which means that achieving a satisfying crust is much easier.

And lastly, as the enzymes that have been paralysed by your fridge have had a chance to get back into play by the time you’re ready to sizzle your “reverse-seared” steak, it’ll likely turn out more tender.

Does it work for all steaks? 

Reverse searing works best for thick steaks. “Ribeye, New York, and filet mignon are great cuts that would provide great results in reverse searing,” chef Sam Shafer told The Takeout.

And writing for Serious Eats, López-Alt wrote that the method is best used on steaks thicker than 3.8-5 cm. 

Reverse-searing steak recipe

The steps are pretty simple. 

• Take your steak out of the fridge, season it, and put it in the oven at anywhere from 93-135°C. The higher the temp, the more “done” your steak will be. 
• Wait ’til it’s just under your ideal temperature (54°C for a medium-rare steak, and 60°C for a medium steak). The time this takes will depend on the thickness of your steak; it can be 20-40 minutes.
• Take it out of the oven and put it into a ripping hot pan with oil. Cook until seared all over.

Another bonus? You don’t have to rest reverse-seared steaks (I’m sold).

In a recent interview with Elle UK, Bridgerton and Derry Girls star Nicola Coughlan recalled the time a tipsy girl, who cornered her in a public loo, said she loved the Netflix hit “because of [Nicola’s] body”. 

Nicola, who said she’d lost a “bunch of weight” for the show and was “probably a size 10″ on-screen, had said earlier in the interview, “The thing I say sometimes that pisses people off is I have no interest in body positivity.” 

Later, she stated discussions about weight are “so fucking boring”. 

I couldn’t agree with her more.

I have been in workplaces, classrooms, countless online spaces, family events, and friendships where the judgment of people’s weight was like dull, repetitive background music. 

I have to admire weight obsessives’ inventiveness, to be fair. Tiny “girl dinners”, single-size clothing brands which seem to make their association with thinness a marketing strategy, and chats about whether you could ever hope to look yourself in the mirror again after eating carbs can occupy hours of your time if you want them to. 

You can spend ages dissecting what *type* of thin or fat someone is, too. Maybe you’re looking at which fruit their (or, to be real, her) body most resembles. Maybe someone’s a pilates princess, or perhaps you deem them a “big back” (a term a lot of thin people seem alarmingly comfortable using to describe what they see as “fat” people and behaviours).

Is a “plus-size” or “mid-size” person’s Instagram bikini post liberating, or a ruinous attempt to “glorify obesity”? Because it obviously can’t just be a fun, mindless pic of a normal person on holiday… right?

What size are you, by the way? Noo, I’m just asking, haha! Also, should we do a water fast? By the way, have you seen how [insert thinner or fatter than usual celeb here] looks now? 

Weight obsession is the beige, formless putty behind so many millions of conversations that it can be easy to forget the base is all the same. 

Which is why such an incredibly boring idea – “some people are smaller. Others are bigger. Some people are small at first, and bigger later; sometimes, the other way around” – has stayed part of public and private discussion for so long. 

What a rude, dull person you would think me if I asked everyone’s weight outright, told them what I thought about that number, and then went back to you and shared those figures again, as if it meant something. Not just that, but chances are any sly comments circling the topic would quickly die out.

To survive and fester into obsession, weight talk must morph. It has to take on the veneer of Serious Discourse, or ever-shifting beauty standards, or judgements of one another’s worth – or, to Nicola’s point, a type of social activism, regardless of what the person with the much-discussed body thinks.

This is not to say fatphobia isn’t real (it is), that it doesn’t manifest in endless pernicious ways, that purposeful activism isn’t important, or that weight obsession can be brushed aside as “not that deep”. 

But Nicola wasn’t talking about any of that when she took a fantasy Regency role which involved looking smoulderingly hot in a (size eight, by the way) corset. And let’s be real; nor are most of the people whose bodies we comment on.

If we got a little more clear-eyed about what our fascination with something as simultaneously tedious, invasive, and irrelevant as an individual’s weight actually boils down to, I’d like to think we could start to focus on more interesting things instead.

Donald Trump’s war in Iran is set to have a trickle-down effect on prices around the world – meaning we could all end up worse off as a result.

The US president caused international chaos after he decided to work with Israel to launch strikes against Iran more than a week ago.

In retaliation, Tehran released missiles and drones on the neighbouring Gulf countries which are home to various US military bases.

It also effectively closed the Straits of Hormuz – the narrow stretch of water between the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman – by attacking the ships which travel through it.

About 20 million barrels of oil moves through the strait each day. That’s around a fifth of the world’s supply.

With the oil industry under threat, the global energy market is on unsteady ground – meaning everyone’s pockets are about to be hit.

In a grim warning, chancellor Rachel Reeves told the Commons that rising oil prices “are likely to put upward pressure on inflation in the coming months”.

Here’s what you need to know.

Petrol Prices Set To Go Up

The disruption in the Middle East is already sending the cost of Brent crude oil up.

It exceeded $105 (£78) a barrel on Monday, which is its highest price point in almost two years.

Gas has not increased in price this quickly since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, a time when the west tried to rapidly wean itself off Moscow’s cheap oil exports.

Higher wholesale energy prices result in higher prices at the petrol pumps.

The average cost of a litre of unleaded petrol was at 137.51p on Monday, while diesel cost 150.97p, according to the automotive services RAC – but both prices are expected to rise.

However, motorists have been urged not to panic-buy as this could be short-lived.

RAC’s head of policy Simon Williams told The Times: “We really shouldn’t see a shock jump in prices because wholesale fuel costs have only been rising gradually.

“Even though the price of Brent crude has risen, the impact of this shouldn’t be felt for more than a week.”

Still, he predicted that unleaded would reach an average of 140p in the next week or so while diesel may go up to 160p. 

Meanwhile, the Petrol Retailers Association has already written to chancellor Rachel Reeves requesting she drops plans to hike fuel duty later this year.

Trump – who is a multi-billionaire – has tried to downplay the impact of rising oil prices.

He wrote on TruthSocial: “Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for USA, and World, Safety and Peace.”

Energy Bills Expected To Rise

Changes in the oil market will hit energy bills too, as so many businesses and households are reliant on fossil fuels.

Wholesale gas prices in the UK have already increased by as much as 50% after Qatar stopped producing liquified natural gas as a result of the conflict. 

The UK is more reliant on gas than many of its European allies though it has been moving towards renewable energy since the Ukraine invasion.

It produces less than half of the gas it needs and imports the rest, meaning UK bills will still be impacted.

The good news is these higher wholesale costs will not trickle down to household budgets until July.

Energy regulator Ofgemcontrols how much companies can charge customers who are on standard variable tariffs for each unit of gas and electricity with a new amount every three months.

The cap has already been confirmed for April to June – £1,641 per year, for homes which use both oil and gas.

However, the investment firm Stifel has warned that European wholesale gas prices could triple if the Strait of Hormuz closes for more than six weeks.

That would take the cap to £2,500 a year.

Interest Rates Expected To Go Up

Approximately 1.2 million borrowers will have their fixed mortgage deals end between now and September, meaning they will be looking to take out a new agreement with the bank.

Mortgage rates were declining and the Bank of England was expected to cut its base rate of interest from 3.75%.

But, the conflict in the Middle East means rates are now likely to go up.

Since Trump first initiated attacks on Iran, swap rates – the rate of interest lenders pay to institutions in return for fixed funding –  went up by 0.2 percentage points.

That’s a cost which is likely to be passed onto homeowners.

For savers, a hike in interest rates is normally a positive as it means they get more returns on their savings.

The stock market has stumbled in recent days but investing usually helps to defy the impact of high inflation rates.

Yet, the FTSE 100 – the Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index – fell nearly 200 points at one point on Monday, though it has already slightly improved.

Overall Economic Impact

Prominent economist Paul Johnson told Times Radio that the Iran war will likely take “at least half a point off growth” within the economy this year, if the conflict continues.

He said: “That doesn’t sound like much, but that is quite a lot.

“That’s going to create problems for the public finances, and it’s going to make us all worse off.”

He added: “If energy prices are up, the UK and other countries dependent on energy will just be worse off, at least for the period that they’re higher.”

Johnson said the damage could be quite reduced if the war concludes quickly – but if it doesn’t, we could be in for “another couple of slightly miserable years.”

Prime minister Keir Starmer also warned on Monday “that the longer this goes on, the more likely the potential for an impact on our economy, impact into the lives and households of everybody and every business”.

Even before the Iran war, the UK economy was already looking rather sluggish at the end of last year, with GDP going up by 0.1% between October and December.

Labour has been promising to improve the UK’s economic growth and address the rising cost of living for years.

But, the longer the conflict goes on, the worse it looks for the government’s plan to implement real change.