Martín Berasategui: the secret to great meat is a rare centre

Berasategui recommends searing the meat to achieve a juicy inside and a crisp exterior. One piece of advice cited is to take the meat out of the cold five hours before cooking.

The cited remarks also stress that meat should not be left dry, recommend cooking over high heat and note that the technique should be adapted to each part of the cut. Another formulation emphasises retaining the juices: if the whole piece is cooked over high heat, the outside chars and the inside dries out.

Berasategui places the secret in a well-seared exterior and a rare centre, or even one cooked less; he says that burning the fat or drying out the fibres inside strips the product of its essence. The proposed distribution of doneness assigns the head to rare, the centre to medium and the tip to well done.