“Cold sear” is a steak cooking technique from America’s Test Kitchen. Unlike the traditional high heat method that I’m familiar from my time working as a cook, or the reverse sear that’s popular these days, this method is very chill (ha!)
I tried it at home, and it was perhaps the easiest steak that I’ve made in a home context. I didn’t have to worry about the fire alarm going off, there was enough time to clean-as-you-go, and resulted in a perfectly adequate medium steak with a really great crust. It came out medium, which is much closer to my preferences than Katie’s, but it was my first attempt — I think it’s extremely amenable to adjustment in a way that other more hectic techniques aren’t.