Seasoning Various Steaks

[Porthos]

In my ten faire kitchen I normally grill less expensive steaks without a lot of marbling (cooking for 80 on a budget). This year I have tried well-marbled chuckeye steaks and this past weekend I splurged on well-marbled New York Strips steaks. In every case the finished grilled steaks tasted under-salted. Do I need to, by conventional wisdom, salt well-marbled steaks more heavily than leaner cuts?

[Anna N]

Fat = Flavour so I think it should work the other way around. But perhaps there is something else coming into play here.  I'll be interested in other opinions. When do you salt?

[boudin noir]

5 hours ago, Porthos said:

In my ten faire kitchen I normally grill less expensive steaks without a lot of marbling (cooking for 80 on a budget). This year I have tried well-marbled chuckeye steaks and this past weekend I splurged on well-marbled New York Strips steaks. In every case the finished grilled steaks tasted under-salted. Do I need to, by conventional wisdom, salt well-marbled steaks more heavily than leaner cuts?

I'm a big fan of chuck eye steaks. Although a bit chewy I find them to be tasty, flaverfull and cheaper than the better known options. I salt them as I would any steak. Sous vide is a good approach to these cuts.

[Porthos]

Seasoning is done about 45 minutes before grilling.

[Okanagancook]

I always salt my steaks and roasts in the morning of the day I cook them in the evening.  It's the Judy Rodgers' school of salting early.  It allows enough time for the meat juices to be drawn out, the salt to dissolve in them and get reabsorbed back into the meat. This deeply seasons the meat without a 'salty' taste.  Check out page 35 onwards from her Zuni Cafe Cookbook.

[gfweb]

and then again before serving

[Okanagancook]

Really, I don't think I've ever done that.  I shall try that tonight with my Porterhouse.  Is that a special finishing/flavoured salt or just Kosher salt?

[btbyrd]

You have to salt the bajeezus out of A5 Wagyu, so I imagine that there's a continuum.

[Paul Bacino]

We like to finish most steaks..  after cooked with a good salt.  Pink flake or Grey

[btbyrd]

I use Maldon.

[Anna N]

I support the Zuni Café method of pre-salting but I am not a hundred percent sure that this will work for Porthos in his Ren Faire kitchen.  He is attempting to feed 80 people on a budget and in a portable kitchen.  Can anyone comment on whether more marbled meat requires more seasoning than less marbled meat?  I think that was his question which is why I didn't raise the Zuni Café method myself. 

[IndyRob]

I've never heard of salting different steaks differently.  I think if you have some top quality Kobe or something, then it might bear some serious contemplation.  But for regular steaks, I've never heard of such a thing.

 

In fact, the one example I can think of is salting a round roast a day ahead (basically a dry brine).  But this is to try to salvage a truly inferior cut - which is kind of the opposite of the question.

 

In the last week I have run across a couple of people who like to aggressively salt steaks just before cooking.  I usually like to salt well about five minutes before cooking.  The idea (Alton Brown inspired) is to dry out the surface a bit for searing.

 

Here's my best guess and I may be completely wrong - A chuckeye (which I also really like) has a much more open texture.  More nooks and crannies for salt to get into.  If you are at all rubbing the salt into the steak then I'd bet $1 that the chuckeye will grab and hold onto more.  A strip steak has a much more homogeneous surface.

 

My local Meijer stores have started to sell something the call a Manhattan steak.  I think it's half of a New York strip.  Versions using sirloin are also starting to appear.  Both are cut to resemble filets, and they look quite convincing but, if you find a deal, can be less than $2.50 per steak.  As I've lately been on a steak frite kick, I've taken to putting them in a bag with some heavily seasoned flour for about an hour before cooking and then dropping them into the frite oil (375) for about 90 seconds and then into a 425 degree oven for 6-7 minutes.  If I've correctly judged the size of the steaks, and adjusted the 6-7 minutes right, the result is perfect med-rare with a crispy exterior.

[btbyrd]

51 minutes ago, Anna N said:

Can anyone comment on whether more marbled meat requires more seasoning than less marbled meat?  I think that was his question which is why I didn't raise the Zuni Café method myself. 

 

Yes. This steak required more salt than I've ever put on any other piece of protein in my entire life.

 

 

 

On the flip side, I've noticed that grass-fed/finished beef (which is relatively lean) requires less seasoning than conventional grain-finished beef. Thickness of the cut matters too, but it's not the only factor (that Wagyu above was relatively thin and still required boatloads of salt). Tenderloin, for example, is pretty lean regardless of the cow's diet, but I always season generously because I always cut them thick.

[IndyRob]

4 minutes ago, btbyrd said:

 

Yes. This steak required more salt than I've ever put on any other piece of protein in my entire life

 

 

 

I'm taking that picture to bed with me tonight in the hopes that I might dream of eating it.

[Okanagancook]

From Cook's Illustrated:

 

'

Throughout years of cooking in the test kitchen, we’ve noticed that we tend to season fatty meat more generously than lean meat. To bolster our anecdotal evidence with real data, we set up the following experiment.

 

 

 

 

EXPERIMENT

We rounded up five meats ranging in fat content: turkey breast, pork loin, strip steak, and both 80 percent and 90 percent lean ground beef. We cooked the meat and chopped it into pieces. We then tossed 10-gram portions of each meat with increasing amounts of salt (0.1 percent, 0.25 percent, 0.5 percent, 0.75 percent, 1 percent, and 1.5 percent by weight of each sample). We had tasters try the samples in order, starting with an unsalted control, and had them record at what percentage the meat tasted properly seasoned. We also sent cooked samples of each type of meat to a lab to determine fat content.

RESULTS

Sure enough, the fattier the meat the more salt it needed to taste properly seasoned. Tasters preferred the lean turkey breast (0.7 percent fat) and pork loin (2.6 percent fat) seasoned with 0.5 percent salt by weight. The strip steak (6 percent fat) and 90 percent lean ground beef (10 percent fat) required about 0.75 percent salt by weight to taste seasoned. And finally, the 80 percent lean ground beef (20 percent fat) tasted seasoned to a majority of tasters only when it reached 1 percent salt by weight.

TAKEAWAY

Our experiment adds credence to the conclusion of several recent published studies that fat has a dulling effect on taste. So when you season meat, remember to use a heavier hand on fatty burgers than you would on moderately fatty meats like strip steak and 90 percent ground beef. Use a lighter hand on lean meats like turkey breast and pork loin.

[IndyRob]

Well, you can't argue with that.  So, naturally, I'm going to argue with that.

 

They chopped the meat up and I think that makes it a very different thing.  If my filet mignon is seasoned on the inside, I'm going to wonder what they did with it (and why).  Some of it is about the contrast.

 

And that steak pictured above posted by btbyrd - I don't know if I'd want to salt the bejeezus out of it.

[Anna N]

I do long for those days when I believed that CI had all the answers. Life seemed so much simpler then. 

[Okanagancook]

They did chop up the meat.

But perhaps their conclusion that the more fat, the more the dulling effect on taste.

Maybe btbyrd can ship you his steak and you can do a side by side comparison 

I certainly can't purchase such a steak where I am.

[btbyrd]

1 hour ago, IndyRob said:

And that steak pictured above posted by btbyrd - I don't know if I'd want to salt the bejeezus out of it.

 

I didn't want to; I needed to. I seasoned it aggressively, as per my typical steak protocol, but once it got to the plate it still needed a good deal of seasoning. My theory about all this is that fat coats your palate which impairs your ability to detect salt. And when you have a ribeye that's 50% fat, you really, really, need to up your seasoning.

 

56 minutes ago, Okanagancook said:

Maybe btbyrd can ship you his steak and you can do a side by side comparison 

I certainly can't purchase such a steak where I am.

 

 I'm usually not able to find meat like this, even in the Chicago area, but they were running a special on imported Japanese Wagyu at my semi-local (40mins away) Mitsuwa marketplace. It's not an item they normally carry, and I wasn't even aware that it would be available when I visited (I went to buy fresh ramen noodles). But when I saw it in the meat case, I couldn't say no.

[FeChef]

Common sense, salt is not fat soluble. More fat, less salt can absorb into meat which is mainly water which salt is water soluble.

[IndyRob]

31 minutes ago, FeChef said:

Common sense, salt is not fat soluble. More fat, less salt can absorb into meat which is mainly water which salt is water soluble.

 

Do we need salt for the meat?  Or for the tongue?  Granted, the tongue may need more salt if it's covered in fat, but there's plenty of water on the tongue - especially when presented with a great steak.

 

But here, we're not talking about great steak.  Just chuckeye vs. strip.

[FeChef]

12 minutes ago, IndyRob said:

 

Do we need salt for the meat?  Or for the tongue?  Granted, the tongue may need more salt if it's covered in fat, but there's plenty of water on the tongue - especially when presented with a great steak.

 

But here, we're not talking about great steak.  Just chuckeye vs. strip.

You wouldn't need as much salt for lean meat. I dont know where tongue came into the discussion. I was just trying to point out why more marbled grades like prime and waygu would need more salt.

[IndyRob]

The tongue is where we taste the salt, no?  That's where the final judging is done.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

I'm not sure I would even like such a fatty piece of beef as btbyrd showed.  He says 50 percent fat, but it looks maybe 65 or even more to me. I know people love this kind of beef and it commands a supreme price. I also know that while rib eye is my very favorite cut of beef, I always discard any thick pieces of fat after cooking and plating. I, for sure, am a fan of well marbled meat, but I would have to experience this extreme example for myself before I could form an intelligent opinion about it. I cut off thin pieces of crispy fat and eat them. I get rid of anything that is white, unmelted and not crisped.

 

I do know that when I cook my much more pedestrian thick rib eyes, which always have a collar of fat on one side, I aggressively salt that fat. I "burn" my steaks Pittsburgh style over charcoal. It usually only takes about 10 or so minutes total cook time over a very hot fire for an inch and a quarter steak. I think it's a waste of money to cook a good steak any other way. I'm lucky that my husband actually comes from Pittsburgh and loves them just that way too. Nice char outside and still mooing in the middle, barely warm red center with plenty of au jus oozing out on the plate and staining your baked potato red. I have been known, when no one was looking to lick the au jus off a plate. 

 

But yeah, in my limited experience, fattier = more salt needed.

Edited May 11, 2016 by Thanks for the Crepes (log)

[AlaMoi]

or perhaps more fat renders out of fattier meats and drips / floats away, taking the salt one put on the outside with it.....