Watch Anthony Bourdain Give His One Crucial Tip For Cooking the Perfect Steak

It’s the very important rule every meat-loving man must know.

If you know anything about cooking steak, you probably know that a properly-cooked hunk of medium-rare beef should have a cool, pink center that gradually fades out toward the edges.

That’s pretty basic, stuff, right? But if you want to nail the perfect steak at home, Anthony Bourdain has one crucial rule to ensure you don’t mess up a great piece of meat—don’t fucking touch it after its done. 

“Following it’s removal from the heat, (the steak) should rest on the board at room temperature for 5-7 minutes., at which point you should STAY AWAY from it,” the globe-trotting Parts Unknown host says in the video above. 

As the always-opinionated Appetites author helpfully explains, the steak will continue to cook despite being off the heat, and most importantly, “the juices are distributing themselves in a wonderful alignment.” 

If you’ve ever jumped the gun and cut into steak too quickly, you may have noticed that the pink center is more concentrated in the center and not as gradually spread out as it’s supposed to be.  

So let those “juices align,” and give your steak the break it needs before you chow down.

h/t: Business Insider