MOULTRIE – Just about everyone has their own special way of cooking a steak but not everyone is an actual World Champion like Stacey Croft.
Croft was crowned as one of two first-place champions at the World Steak Cook-Off in Fort Worth, Texas, in March, competing against 500 teams representing 16 countries.
“I was only the second woman that’s ever have won it. 2020 was the first year a woman ever won and she was the youngest and then I won this year. Well, tied for first,” she said. “It was very overwhelming for sure.”
Croft and her husband, Kenny, make up the Sunbelt Grillers team and have been competing for about five years. They went to a local competition in Hazlehurst and her husband placed fifth, she said, and he was hooked from there.
“So I sat back and watched for about a year, helping him, and then finally everybody kept saying, ‘You should cook, too.’ A lot of the husband and wife teams that we cook with, the wives were like ‘cook, too.’ Kenny bought me my first grill and I started cooking,” Croft said.
She said that she’s been cooking for about four years now and she’s qualified every year to go to the World Steak Cook-Off except this year she went on an invitation.
“So, I went on that and ended up winning it all,” Croft said, adding that she tied with another cook and they share the championship.
“We share the championship title this year. This was the tenth year, the tenth anniversary. And the first time it’s ever happened that they couldn’t break the tie,” she said.
She said this was a “golden ticket” event, sponsored by the Steak Cook-Off Association, so one can only compete if they have won another event or are invited because you’re in the top ten of an event.
She said the competitors always cook rib-eye steak, which the competition provides for them. They get about three hours from the time they pick out their steaks to the time they turn them in to the judges and it’s a double-blind judging.
Croft uses a small, table-top charcoal grill but competitors can cook on any heat-source that they want. She said they also use grill grates to get the marks on the steak that are required.
“We are judged on appearance, texture, doneness, taste and overall impression,” she added.
She said the steaks have to be cooked to medium and they get a practice steak to cook that day before they cook their steak to be delivered to the judges. She said the steak that they turn in cannot be cut. They are not allowed to cut it to see the doneness.
“We have to know,” she said and added that they use a meter and just know what they want to cook the temperature to.
She said it also depends on the steak at what temperature will get it to the medium doneness that’s required and she prefers a “tri-heart” steak, which has three muscles.
“A tri-heart, to me, is more forgiving. But the texture can kill you on them if you get them too soft and tender. They cut with a plastic utensil so when they cut into it, if it just rips and tears and just kind of pulls, they’re gonna hit you hard. It’s too soft,” Croft said and added that the judges just like a clean cut.
Croft said that when she cooked in the semi-final round of the competition, a storm came-up and there was lightning all around. She said their tent was set up next to a huge transformer and her husband told her it would be a miracle if she didn’t get struck by lightning.
“And I’m like, if I do, turn this steak in,” she said laughing.
She added that she cooked the best steak that she could’ve cooked in those circumstances because some of the things they have to deal with in competition is the humidity and rain, which determine how well the charcoal will perform and the temperature of the grill and how well the meat is going to do.
“So we have to take into consideration all of that when we’re cooking. When it’s a beautiful, hot, sunny day, that steak may only take five minutes to cook. When it’s cold outside or rainy, it may take 20 minutes to cook,” she said.
Going into the competition, she said that her goal was just to be one of the 15 finalists that made it onto the stage. She said, when she won it, she was shocked.
She said the hardest thing for her to do was to get up on stage in front of the 3,000 people that were there and introduce herself and say a few words.
Since Croft’s a World Champion, she has an invite for life to the World Steak Cook-Off in Fort Worth, Texas, she said.
“It’s something we get to do together. We both enjoy doing it. And it’s competitive but it’s relaxing at the same time. And we compete against each other, as well,” Croft said.
She said on an average she and her husband compete in about 20 competitions a year and it can be either a single or a double competition where you can enter two steaks for judging, which doubles the chances of placing or winning.
“But it’s a lot of work. You do it all on the same day. And that’s what we like about it,” she said and added they had thought about barbecue competitions but those were always all-weekend competitions and they are responsible for purchasing their own meat, which gets expensive.
“SCA, it’s normally $160 for single and $320 for a double. You set-up on the same day, you go home on the same day. So, it’s busy work the whole day while you’re there,” she said.
She said there weren’t a lot of steak cooking competitions in this area so they have to travel a lot to cook but they’re usually only one-day events. Her favorite events are ones that the proceeds goes to local charities.
“SCA gives back so much to charities and that’s the one thing that I love about it,” Croft said.
As far as tips on cooking a good steak, Croft said that it all starts with picking a good steak and that once that’s done, a great result can be achieved with any type of steak.
She said that her recipe that she used at the World Championship and won with was something that she had only come up with a few weeks before and had only cooked it at home. She said that she liked the way it tasted and she ended-up with a great taste score so she will stick with the recipe. So, stick with a recipe that just tastes good, she said.
He future goal, in a couple of years, is to bottle her championship recipe and get it into local grocery stores and businesses.