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Turn $5 steak to $50 steak with salt

steamykitchen.com

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Re: Turn $5 steak to $50 steak with salt

#71

Post by tptacek »

illumin8 wrote: post #56
ars wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't you worried about the plasticizers from the bags?

Sous Vide sounds interesting, but I don't relish the though of eating known carcinogens that are leeching into my foods. BPA is a serious risk, and the FDA so far has refused to take much action on it. It seems that corporate profits trump safety these days. How much rocket fuel is safe to drink in our public water supply? What are a few deaths against the right to corporate earnings?

You're not crazy, but if you're serious, you basically need to avoid all commercial meat, both because nobody's guaranteed that things like BPA haven't leached into your food before it arrives on the shelves, and because commercial meat is exposed to worse things than plasticizers.

Re: Turn $5 steak to $50 steak with salt

#72

Post by logicalmind »

tptacek wrote: post #68
elblanco wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I usually just put a liberal coating of garlic salt on and grill at a low temperature, rotating every 2 minutes or so until the meat looks visibly moist. Turn the heat up to high at the end for the final 2 rotations and done. I've had people fly cross-country (twice) for these steaks and it's really not all that hard. But it makes for an expensive summer season with lots of entertaining on my deck. One guy was mystif…

I cook steak in a vacuum-sealed bag submerged in a water bath held with a PID controller at precisely 131f, then sear them in a cast iron pan with just-barely-smoking peanut oil for about 30 seconds a side. Nobody has flown cross-country for my cooking, but the Chicago HN'ers should do a dinner sometime.

"Chicago HN'ers should do a dinner sometime"

Sounds like a good idea to me. I cooked a 15lbs kobe beef brisket last weekend and had more meat than people to share it with.

Re: Turn $5 steak to $50 steak with salt

#73

Post by Groxx »

tptacek wrote: post #70
Groxx wrote: post #52

Water dissolves salt, and some of it gets sucked back into meat via osmosis WTF is wrong with people and osmosis? This is diffusion. Osmosis is diffusion of water and nothing else. Also, "table salt tastes like shit" is quite true. I've been buying an unrefined sea salt for a while now, the difference is incredible . Flavor in foods, where before was mere saltiness.

You're noticing the difference in the texture of the salt, not the flavor of the salt. You'll do just as well with kosher salt, which is significantly cheaper than sea salt (and, more importantly, comes in bigger containers). I have a small bag of fleur de sel (we call it "crunchy salt") which I use to finish things, but again, it's for the texture. I wouldn't say I've found any incredible difference in salt flavor.

No, the flavor. Unrefined salts tend to carry loads of random minerals from the source, which lend their flavors to whatever you use it on.

I'm not a big salt-flavor fan, so I effectively never have salt pieces on anything. The texture doesn't exist in any salt I use, as it's all dissolved.

edit: finally found it. Redmond RealSalt, all the big grocery stores near me carry it. ~6.50 for 26 oz, so for my uses that's 6.50 for a year of salt usage, if not more.

Re: Turn $5 steak to $50 steak with salt

#74

Post by tptacek »

whimsy wrote: post #18
weaksauce wrote: post #9

OK. Sous Vide looks more interesting to me that overly salting a piece of meat. tptacek care to weigh in? I am about 23 hours away from buying a rice cooker + pid controller to make this happen. I do the pid part at work so it is interesting to me from a work point of view too. Edit: If you have not seen sous vide cooking: http://amath.colorado.edu/~baldwind/sous-vide.html It looks amazing to me.

I thought of this exact page whilst reading; I'm glad I wasn't the only one. It would be pretty awesome if you documented how you made it work (especially if you do it in such a way that is cheap and easily reproducible).

1. Buy Auber Instruments SV controller @ ~$120.

2. Buy mechanically-switched Black & Decker rice cooker @ $40.

3. Buy Seal-a-Meal vacuum sealer @ $40.

4. Buy two aged rib-eye steaks.

5. Pat steaks dry, salt liberally, pepper.

6. Seal steaks in a single vacuum-sealed bag with 1 tbsp of butter for each steak.

7. Set Auber PID controller for 131f.

8. Put sealed steaks in the bottom of the rice cooker. Fill with water.

9. Ensure that the thermal probe from the PID controller is in the water.

10. Ensure that the rice cooker is plugged into the PID controller, and the PID controller into the wall.

11. Walk away for 4 hours.

12. Heat peanut oil in a skillet until shimmering.

13. Remove steaks from water bath. Pat dry. Oil should be just-smoking.

14. Sear steaks on both sides, 30-40 seconds per side.

15. Rest meat 10-15 minutes.

16. Serve.

Re: Turn $5 steak to $50 steak with salt

#75

Post by illumin8 »

logicalmind wrote: post #57
illumin8 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A great way to cook a steak if you have good ventilation is to use a cast iron skillet and heat the skillet in an oven to 500 degrees. Brush the steak with olive oil ahead of time, and make sure it is room temperature (not fridge temperature). Pull the skillet out of the oven, put it on the stove. Turn the burner up on the stove, and cook the steak for 30 seconds on each side, then put the entire skillet back in the…

Your instructions provide a perfectly reasonable way to cook a steak, but the theory on searing locking in juices has been proven false (see Good Eats or America's Test Kitchen). The purpose of searing steak is to invoke the Maillard Reaction which dramatically increases flavor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Searing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction

Interesting, I did not know that. I assumed it was similar to cauterizing a wound.

Re: Turn $5 steak to $50 steak with salt

#76

Post by logicalmind »

rms wrote: post #35

I think you could use less total sodium when doing this if you substituted some MSG for salt.

A more natural way to achieve the same result would be to wrap the steak in kombu and allow it to rest in the fridge for a while. The Japanese use this technique for some fish preparations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kombu

Re: Turn $5 steak to $50 steak with salt

#77

Post by dminor »

illumin8 wrote: post #54
ecuzzillo wrote: post #15

Salting things a while beforehand so the salt penetrates it is a good idea in general. You're supposed to do that to basically any savory food, including chicken, meat, eggs. For big things, like prime rib roasts, you salt it a whole day ahead. So, this guy compared wrongly-salted expensive steak to correctly-but-very-heavily-salted cheap steak. Unfair. Also, in general, expensive steak isn't expensive because it's a…

A great way to cook a steak if you have good ventilation is to use a cast iron skillet and heat the skillet in an oven to 500 degrees. Brush the steak with olive oil ahead of time, and make sure it is room temperature (not fridge temperature). Pull the skillet out of the oven, put it on the stove. Turn the burner up on the stove, and cook the steak for 30 seconds on each side, then put the entire skillet back in the…

That is Alton Brown's recipe (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/pan-seared-ri...).

Re: Turn $5 steak to $50 steak with salt

#78

Post by aarongough »

d_c wrote: post #41
ecuzzillo wrote: post #15

Salting things a while beforehand so the salt penetrates it is a good idea in general. You're supposed to do that to basically any savory food, including chicken, meat, eggs. For big things, like prime rib roasts, you salt it a whole day ahead. So, this guy compared wrongly-salted expensive steak to correctly-but-very-heavily-salted cheap steak. Unfair. Also, in general, expensive steak isn't expensive because it's a…

How would you do that with eggs?

Eggshells are actually very porous. Putting eggs in very salty water will see the salt get absorbed through the shell and into the white and yolk.

'Salty eggs' are often used in Chinese food...

Re: Turn $5 steak to $50 steak with salt

#79

Post by glhaynes »

Groxx wrote: post #67
jackfoxy wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cut her some slack. She did confess to sleeping through chemistry and otherwise wrote and illustrated a good article, while pounding bourbon.

It's not the article writer in particular, the article is basically fine in other respects, it's people in general. I see far more people using "osmosis" more often than "diffusion", despite almost never using it correctly. For example, those "Learning through osmosis" signs in libraries, articles, shirts, etc. absolutely abound. It clearly isn't working if you think that's osmosis. Or there are tons of services with…

"Osmosis vs diffusion is not difficult to understand. It just seems people use it to sound smarter, and thus fail miserably 99% of the time."

They fail 99% of the time with you, but if the vast majority of the people don't know the difference (as you said they don't), then the misusers aren't failing with the vast majority of listeners. :)

Re: Turn $5 steak to $50 steak with salt

#80

Post by dzlobin »

tptacek wrote: post #47
dzlobin wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was cooking at a two Michelin star restaurant last year where a large majority of proteins and vegetables were cooked sous vide. Don't underestimate the importance of a good salting, but sous vide will make everything you cook perfect, and consistent. There is a better home option now than the rice cooker + pid timer( which does not circulate water and leads to uneven cooking. http://www.sousvidesupreme.com/ This i…

Totally not sold on the value of the circulator for a home rig (although, don't spent $1000 on an IC, since the price circulation is about to drop radically). Unless you want to make a poster of eggs cooked to every degree between 130 and 150, the ghetto PID controller setup is plenty precise enough.

I highly doubt that the price of the ic is going to drop as it still hasn't dropped a dollar. A oid controller is totally fine for a home cook, and if you can afford it the sous vide supreme is even better. A quality foodsaver would be just fine for home use as well. PS if any NYC HN'ers are interested in coming to an underground supper club for dinner, check our. Arazorashinyknife.com and shoot me an e-mail. Its a fun time and everybody Is welcome
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