Why YSK: When you cook meat, any water on the surface must first evaporate before much browning can occur. You want to get as much of a Maillard reaction as possible in the limited cooking time you have before the meat reaches the correct internal temperature. Removing the moisture first means that the heat of the cooking surface isn’t wasted on evaporation and can instead interact with the meat to form the complex sugars and proteins of the Maillard reaction.
I use a meat thermometer to gauge when it’s room temp, so I know how long it takes (spoiler: about a day).
I’m not great about food safety so keeping meat out that long is usually a recipe for food poisoning – that’s why I cheat by putting it in the microwave on 10% power for 3 rounds of 5 minutes. This usually gets the steak 90% of the way to room temp with minimal cooking (this obviously varies a lot by wattage and cut, that’s why thermometers are useful!). After that, I wrap the steak in cling-wrap and let it rest on the counter for another hour (the wrap helps prevent evaporative cooling) which gets the steak the rest of the way to room temperature.
Thermometers ftw.