Cooking STEAK with Sunlight

Guys, we are out here in the backyard with our mega solar scorcher
on this beautiful sunny, warm day. And we want to find out
if we can use this solar scorcher to cook a steak. [Captions by Judy V. At Y Translator]
[Music] [Music] Here's the basic idea.

We're going to try cooking the steak
in this pan in two different methods. The first will involve finding a spot where the solar scorcher is hot
but not perfectly concentrated. So it will heat the whole steak at once. The second method will involve using
the solar scorcher to heat up the pan itself.

And then using that
pans heat to cook the steak. Just to help out with the flavor, we've got a little bit of salt
and a little bit of butter. We'll start with this smaller
piece of steak in the pan, and we need to find a point
of focus to our solar scorcher where there is a lot of heat
but it's not so concentrated, that it's just going to burn the meat. To do that, I have an
instant-read thermometer, and I'm going to try
to hold this in the beam, and see if I can find a place where it's putting out about
200 degrees Fahrenheit of heat.

At the moment, the focal point is so hot that it's actually melting
the paver stones down there. And I don't want to cook
our steak on that high of a temperature. So let's find out
if there's a spot in the beam, where it registers on
the thermometer as being hot, but not so hot that
it's just going to burn things. I think that's leveling off.

Right about there. So that's the height that I need to get the steak and
the pan to get a nice even cook. [Music] I think we're perfect right about there. It'll keep climbing just a little bit, but our pan is also
going to be a little bit higher, and then the steak is over an inch thick.

That should raise it up. And mostly, I think
this is going to work out great. [Music] Now, let's put this
into our focused beam of sunlight, and hope the temperature
of the steak slowly starts rising. It's not going to go very quickly.

It'll probably take at least 10 minutes, may be considerably more, to get up to the temperature
we're going to be looking for, which is going to be
about 130 Fahrenheit. [Music] It's interesting that our oven thermometer says that it's about
150 degrees Fahrenheit where it is, but our instant thermometer
was telling us that it was over 200. I'm not sure which of our
pieces of equipment is incorrect. I think the oven thermometer
is just on the very edge of the light and so it's not heating up quite as much
as the instant-read thermometer was.

I prefer a steak that's
cooked just under medium. So I'm shooting for an internal
temperature of about 140 degrees Fahrenheit. And then it will finish off
cooking just a little bit more as I try and sear the top and bottom. [Music] I'm getting about
a 140 degrees Fahrenheit read anywhere I put that thermometer.

So I think it's time
to start concentrating this beam, and see if we can get
a sear on the outside of this steak. To do that, we're going to have
to drop our pan a little bit lower. [Music] That wood is now
burning almost instantly. So I think we've got a good
concentrated bit of sunlight there.

Just have to keep this moving around. About when we want to
start adding some butter. [Music] I think we still need to go lower,
to really get into that focal point of that beam. [Music] There we go.

That's the sizzle I'm hoping for. [Music] Okay, I think this side is done. Let's try and flip it over. Give the other side a turn.

[Music] That's a steak. Question is,
is it a correctly cooked steak? [Music] Oh, overcooked. [Music] Well it appears that I have cooked
this steak a little bit more than is ideal. I like it to be a little bit
more pink in the center, but that doesn't mean
it's not going to taste good.

[Music] That is good. That's really good. Its very hot. It's a good steak.

For the second part of the steak, we're going to try heating up
the pan directly in the sunlight, and then dropping
the steak into the hot pan and see if that gives us
any better of a sear. Start out with just a
little bit of butter in there. We can see from the butter,
the pan is nice and hot. Which is what you want for steak.

[Music] Pretty good sizzling sound. I'm not sure if the pan
was as hot as I was hoping for. [Music] Well we now have the focal
point on one part of the pan, which is supposed
to heat up the rest of the pan, but it doesn't look like it's getting
evenly heated all the way through. Looks like there's just one
little spot where the butter is sizzling, and the rest not so much.

The inside of our steak is still
showing about 70 degrees Fahrenheit. I'm also concerned
because one side of our steak looks like it's getting a lot of heat, and the other side looks like
it's just staying completely raw. [Music] We've got a burn spot near
where the sun was hitting the pan, and now we're getting smoking, which means we're
approaching the flashpoint of the oil. And I do not want to start
a grease fire around the steak.

I'm afraid this method
just isn't going to work. So I think I'm going to try
going back to the first method of heating the whole pan and steak at once, and see if we can get a slightly
better cook job than the last time. [Music] Man, that is really good. [Music] Confirmed:
you can cook a steak with sunlight.

[Music] Yeah video's over.
I'm just gonna eat steak now. This is gonna be the whole next video. Is just me eating steak. Guys, the fun doesn't have to end.

There's still more for you to see. That little box up at the top will
transport you directly to our last video. Go check it out. The box in the bottom
will show you what YouTube think you should be watching next.

And if you hit this
bomb here in the middle, you'll be subscribed to our channel. So you never miss out
on another video again. Don't forget to ring the bell
and we will see you in next one. Talk to you then..