Let me make the case for the flat iron, because somebody has to. It’s a shoulder cut (the top blade, off the chuck), which means it comes from the part of the cow nobody writes poems about, and it costs a fraction of what the glamour cuts run. But pound for pound, I think it’s one of the best steaks you can put over a fire. It’s nearly as tender as a filet, and unlike a filet it actually tastes like something. I’ll say the quiet part out loud, y’all: I would take a good flat iron over a tenderloin most nights of the week, and I’d spend the difference on more steak.

It also happens to be one of the easiest steaks in the world to cook well, as long as you do two things: dry it out, and cook it hot and fast. That is the whole game. Everything below is just those two ideas with details attached.

Here’s the part folks skip, and it’s the part that matters most. A wet steak steams; a dry steak sears. So a couple of hours ahead (the night before is even better), you pat the steak bone-dry, salt it well on both sides, and set it on a couple of paper towels on a sheet pan, uncovered, in the fridge. Then you leave it alone and let it dry out completely. The salt works its way in, and the surface turns tacky and then dry. That tacky layer has a name, by the way: it’s a pellicle, a thin skin of protein that forms on meat as it air-dries, and it’s exactly what gives you a hard, dark, searable crust on the grill instead of a grey, weepy one. Two hours is good; longer is better. (It is also a fine excuse to get the steak handled early and pour yourself something while you wait. I’m just saying the timeline allows it.)

When you’re ready, light the grill and let it get genuinely, alarmingly hot. I run my Kamado Joe up to 550 or 600, lid down, until the grate is scorching. You are not being cautious here. You want the kind of heat that makes you briefly reconsider your eyebrows.

Lay the steak down and then leave it be. Two to three minutes, no poking, no peeking, no lifting the corner to look; let the crust set. Flip it once and give it another two to three on the other side. That’s it. For a flat iron this size I go closer to two minutes a side for medium-rare and closer to three for medium. It’s a thin, forgiving cut, which also means the gap between just-right and overdone is about ninety seconds of inattention, so stay close. Pull it before you think it’s ready, because the next step keeps cooking it.

Then rest it. I mean really rest it: ten to fifteen minutes on a board before you so much as pick up a knife. I know everybody says this and I know you’re hungry. Do it anyway. Cut in early and all that juice you worked for runs out onto the cutting board, and now you’re eating a good steak that’s drier than it should be and wondering where it went sideways. It went sideways because you were impatient. Fifteen minutes. Go set the table.

What I actually do with a flat iron, nine times out of ten, is build a steak and blue cheese salad around it. It’s one of those dinners that manages to feel virtuous and indulgent at the same time, and is honestly mostly a delivery system for the blue cheese.

P.S. Yes, I dry-brined a steak and described it as a head start on a cocktail. Both things can be true.

P.P.S. The vinaigrette was a champagne one that happened to be on sale at Whole Foods, which I mention only so you know I am not above a sale, and neither should you be.

P.P.P.S. If you set this salad in front of someone and they ask for “just a little” blue cheese, by all means respect their wishes, and then quietly add a bit more anyway.