Salt meat before or after you cook?

[Christopher Haatuft]

At work, I like to salt the steaks before they go in the pan. Usually I find it easier to get the whole steak salted if I can rub the salt in while the meat is raw. Then pat it of and place it in the frying pan. A discussion at work though, is on when to pepper it! I never pepper the steaks before frying, as I like to have the pan smoking hot, something that I belive will burn the pepper.

[FabulousFoodBabe]

Salt, cbp and a little oil immediately before the stuff goes onto the heat. It takes longer to brown and in my opinion, gives a better crust.

[Michael Ruhlman]

some meat proteins are salt soluable, so i wonder if some of the surface moisture is liquified protein, which accounts for the better more complex crust and why maybe you shouldn't pat dry meat that's been salted before it goes into the pan, even though it is the common sense thing to do.

[k43]

In the Braising Q&A (2/18/05), Paula Wolfert wrote:

When I was working in Southwest France back in the late 70's and early 80's, I studied briefly with a chef named André Guillot, now gone about 10 years. He used to give cooking courses for chefs and enthusiatic cooks in Santons in Provence.

Among his most famous fans were Marc Meneau, Gerard Vie, Jean Marie Amat, Emil Jung and Richard Olney. In fact, we formed an Association of the Friends of Andre Guillot to keep his name alive, but alas he is almost forgotten today.

One of his most memorable tips for salting meat included the following:" lightly salt the meat the minute you bring it home. If you do this, you will hardly need to salt later, and in the end you’ll use half as much salt as you would normally. Lightly salted meat will tenderize and mature in flavor when stored overnight in the refrigerator. "

He also taught me that though some blood will run out, he considered it insignificant. In fact, he suggested that meat be coated lightly with grape-seed oil right after the salting to keep it from drying out; he prefered grape-seed oil, because it smoked at a much higher temperature than other oils.

[jsolomon]

some meat proteins are salt soluable, so i wonder if some of the surface moisture is liquified protein, which accounts for the better more complex crust and why maybe you shouldn't pat dry meat that's been salted before it goes into the pan, even though it is the common sense thing to do.

←

It is much more likely that those proteins are salted out than salted in at the concentrations the salt is at on the surface of the meat, at least at places where the crystal contacts the meat.

See the Hofmeister Series.

[MichBill]

In the Bruce Aidells and Denis Kelly book "Meat" they outline a neat experiment to determine whether you prefer meat salted before or after cooking (pg 38).

Their conclusion is that presalted and preseasoned meat is much more flavorful and juicy than meat seasoned after cooking. After duplicating their experiment - I agree with their conclusions.

[petite tête de chou]

Salt *fish* before or after cooking? So far I've only read recommendations regarding red meat. Same "rules?"

[Christopher Haatuft]

I usually salt the fish after its been in the pan as I wipe it down to get rid of the moisture before I fry it. Its easier to determine how much salt is on it if you havent wiped it after you salt it.