re: Truth or Myth?

Cooks Illustrated Sept/Oct '14 issue did a comparison. They cut steaks in half and froze them. Thawed one piece, left the other frozen solid. Cooked both with reverse sear skillet/oven method.

The frozen steaks took longer to cook but browned just as well and in the same time. They had less gray, overcooked meat under the crust, lost 9% less moisture, and tasters unanimously preferred the cooked from frozen steaks.

NY Times had an article on how Modernist Cuisine recommends cooking steaks from frozen. They used a blow torch to get the crust.

Looks like bringing it to room temp before cooking is a negative use of time.