Steak problems, diagnosed

A gray steak usually means the surface spent too long steaming or heating below an effective searing temperature instead of browning rapidly. Start with the surface: if it was wet, heavily marinated or crowded into a cooling pan, moisture had to evaporate before browning could begin. Then check whether the pan was fully hot and whether the steak was left in contact long enough to form a crust.

This is a heat-gradient problem: the surface is receiving energy much faster than the center. Thick steaks cooked only over aggressive direct heat are especially prone to a dark, overdone exterior while the middle lags behind. Check thickness, heat intensity, starting temperature and whether the method used a lower-heat stage before or after searing.

First separate cooking toughness from cut-and-slicing toughness. If the steak is dry and firm throughout, overcooking is the leading suspect. If it is juicy enough but still takes a lot of chewing, check the cut itself and how it was sliced. Coarse-grained cuts such as flank are much easier to chew when sliced thinly across the grain.