You can cook steaks without adding any oil at all -- in fact, this is how to cook steak in an apartment without getting it all smokey.
According to America's Test Kitchen, do this: Pat dry. Start cold in nonstick/cast iron — no preheat, no oil. Flip every 2 mins. Start high, after few flips, turn heat down to medium. Keep flipping every 2 mins until done.
Most cuts worth eating have some fat on them (filet mignons might not but they are very dry anyway -- to me they're not worth it). This fat is enough to brown and cook the steak on. It's completely unnecessary to add oil.
Even better is a reverse sear in stove on an elevated rack on a baking sheet at 230 degrees for 30 minutes, then you finish the steak off on a hot oiled (avocado or maybe peanut oil) skillet for 1 minute on each side.
I went from sous vide > reverse sear (faster than sous vide) > oil-free pan-sear, in the decreasing order of time of it takes.
I find the pan-sear delivers almost the same results in much less time (of course, you won't get the uniform insides of a reverse sear, but close enough since you're flipping so much). I'm also at a stage of life when I can afford better cuts of meat.
That’s what chefs were taught too. The reasoning behind it is that less flipping equals good browning. The idea is that carryover heat and resting will cook the insides adequately.
But I think ATK or someone else debunked this as the best practice. Flipping more than once gets you more even internal cooking.
In my oven, 230deg is just about maximum temperature; cooking anything that hot for 30 minutes will result in cinders. I take it your oven is calibrated in Fahrenheit?
I’m curious too — 230F seems low for that amount of time. I’ve cooked plenty of meat in a smoker at 200-250F, but it takes many hours. On the flip side I agree 450F (~230C) sounds a bit high, but not imo catastrophically so.
