"Thought you might find this interesting. Excerpts from Guide Culinaire by Auguste Escoffier. " I submit as a principle that the golden rule in grills is to strictly observe the correct degree of heat which is proper to each treated food, never forgetting that the larger and richer in nutrition the piece of meat, the quicker and more thorough must be it's initial setting." The use of, and the part played by, rissoling or searing. "If large pieces of meat (beef or mutton) are in question, the better their quality and the richer they are in juices, the more resisting must be the rissoled coating of this meat will be proportionatly great or small according to the latter be rich or poor, and this pressure will gradually increase with the rising heat. If the grill fire be so regulated as to insure the progressive penetration of the meat into the cooking object, this is what happens. The heat, striking the surface of the meat whic is in direct contact with the fire, penetrates the tissues, and spreads through the layers of the meat, driving the latter's juices in front of it. When these reach the opposite, ressoled, or seared side of the meat, they are checked, and thereupon, absorbing the incoming heat, effect the cooking of the inner parts.

"Of course if the piece of meat is very thick, the heat of the fire should be preportionatly lessened the moment the initial prossess of rissoling or searing of the meat's surface has been done, the object being to allow the heat to penetrate the cooking body more regularly."

"A rumpsteak or Chateaubriand in order to be properly cooked, should first have it's outside surface ressoled on a very hot fire, with a view to preserving it's juices, after which cooking may proceed over a moderate fire so as to allow the gradual penetration of the heat into the center of the steak."

"Grilled red meat should always be turned with tongs, and great care must be observed that it's surface not be torn or pierced, lest the contained juices escape."

I'm sure the world's greatest chef and the renound chemist must have collaberated on this as they both cooked that steak in France about one hundred years ago. "