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SubscribeTuesday, August 28, 2007
Steak Recipe: Turning Cheap “Choice” Steak into Gucci “Prime” Steak
How to Make the Most Tender, Flavorful Steak Recipe
If you are a steak-lover, I hope that the title of this post + luscious photo is enticing enough for you to read though the entire article. Because I promise you that it’s worth it. Even if you don’t eat steak, this is a must-read…as you can impress the hell outta your carnivorean friends (and sometimes, when you’re a vegetarian in a herd of carnivores…it would just be nice to have that extra, “dude….you didn’t know that about steak???!” in your pocket.)
My entire family (including the 2 yr old kid) just adores any type of steak recipe…you could probably classify us as professional steak-eaters. In fact, it is my husband’s life-long quest to hone his grilling technique so that our steaks at home turn out charred crusty on the outside and perfectly medium-rare on the inside. With grill marks for show, of course. Seriously, we are too cheap to eat out and would rather cook a nice steak recipe at home. For the past 4 months, we have been experimenting with how to get full, juicy, beefy flavor of a ribeye with butter-knife tenderness of a filet mignon without feel like getting ripped off buying Prime cuts. And after 4 months of eating steak 2x a week, I think we’ve figured it out. So, my friends, I am offering you a very juicy secret, one that will turn an ordinary “Choice” cut of steak into a gucci “Prime” cut (And yes, I know what “Choice” and “Prime” means – it’s the marbling. The salting doesn’t affect fat content – I’m using those terms as a figure of speech and something people can relate to)
Do you know the joy of buying Choice and eating Prime? It’s like buying a Hyundai and getting a free mail-in rebate for a BMW upgrade!!!
The Steak Secret: massively salt your steaks 1 hour before cooking for every inch of thickness.
Notice that I didn’t say, “sprinkle liberally” or even “season generously.” I’m talking about literally coating your meat. It should resemble a salt lick.
Here’s two nice pieces of regular ‘ol supermarket steak. They’re about 1.25 inches thick, so I’ll let them salt for about 1.25 hours.
Season liberally with kosher salt on both sides:
And then just let it sit on your counter.
After 15 minutes, it will look like this — you can see how the meat’s water is starting to come up to the surface — and that some of the salt is still on the surface of the steak.
After 30 minutes, you’ll see more water:
After almost an hour:
And now 1.25 hours – see all that water? You can also see that there’s still salt on the surface of the steak.
The next step is to discard the water, rinse the steak really well to rid of all the salt. Pat very dry. Very very dry with clean paper towels so that absolutely no moisture is left on the steak.
Then it’s time to cook.
Before y’all throw a hissy fit, just hear me out. I first learned of this technique from Judy Rodgers’ The Zuni Cafe Cookbook: A Compendium of Recipes and Cooking Lessons from San Francisco’s Beloved Restaurant
Oh, and if the drawings look like a 3rd grader did it, too bad….YOU try drawing with a laptop touch-pad and a glass of bourbon on the rocks.
How Salting Works
All of you who season JUST before grilling – this is what you are really doing to the meat. Did you know that? All the water comes to the surface and if you don’t pat super-dry, you’re basically STEAMING the meat. Plus, your salt just sits on the surface of the steak, leaving the interior tasteless.
Now – note that only a little of the salt gets to go back into the meat. Don’t worry – you aren’t going to be eating all that salt!
Bourbon does that to me too.
I can hear it now..BUT!!! What of all the water that stayed on the surface of the meat? Aren’t you drawing all the moisture out of the meat? Will it taste like a salt lick? (*%!*%!@#!#!!! I DON’T UNDERSTAND THIS STEAK RECIPE!!!
Pull your pants back on and keep reading…
Verification on Technique
Cook’s Illustrated January 08 issue (and you can also find it on their paid portion of their website. Just search for “Improving Cheap Roast Beef”) They salt a 4lb roast beef (big, fat, thick meat) and they are using 4 tsp kosher salt – therefore their steak recipe recommends salting for 18-24 hrs. It’s all related: thickness of meat : amount of salt : time.
Salting Steak Recipe Key Points
- Use kosher or sea salt, not table salt <– that is important. It will not work well with tiny tiny grains of table salt. Plus, table salt tastes like shit.
- Use steaks 1″ or thicker.
- Follow my timetable (below)
- If you are Harold McGee, a member of Alton Brown’s research team or Mr. Burke my high school chem teacher…..and think I’m full of B.S…. please let me know. But guys, none of this was in your books. I had to formulate, extrapolate, hypotholate and guesstulate based on your stuff. Highly mental activity.
- I know this sounds awfully like salt-curing, which dries out meat (like beef jerky). But with salt curing, you use A LOT more salt and leave it salting for A LOOOOOONG time. We’re talking about a little tiny nap here – not weeks – just enough to break down the proteins and flavor the steak throughout.
- Again, don’t worry about all that salt. Just enough of it gets absorbed into the meat. Most of it gets washed down the drain when you rinse off. Really.
- I know you’re going to ask…so I’ll answer it for you. Why not brine? You could if you really want water-logged diluted-tasting crappy steak.
I understand that this method will cause chaos, confusion and controversy in your household. But I encourage you to experiment: try adding spices, crushed garlic and rosemary sprigs to the salt, which will then act like Christina Aguilera dragging its entourage of flavors with it into the meat. If confusion in the household becomes unbearable, just whack’em with the hunk of salted steak..
Grilled Steak Recipe with Garlic-Herb Butter
Revised 9/13/10 to make salt ratio and timing easier to remember
1. Buy a good sized Choice steak. I like mine 1.25 to 1.5 inches thick. Any cut of steak: Filet, Sirloin, Rib Eye, Porterhouse, T-Bone and NY Strip – they all work. Though, please remember to get steak that you’d normally buy to grill. Don’t go buying some weird cut like the cow armpit and expect it to taste just like a NY Strip. You can do this with steaks less than 1″, just really watch your timing. If your steak is already superbly marbled – cut back on your timing and your salt! The fattier (more marbled) the meat is, the faster the salt works its way through the meat.
2. Sprinkle 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of kosher/sea salt PER SIDE. Use the photos at beginning of the post as guide on how much salt. For every inch thickness of steak, let sit at room temperature for 1 hour.
- Less than 1-inch steak: 30-45 minutes
- 1 inch thick steak: 1 hour
- 1.25 inch steak: 1 hour and 15 minutes
If you don’t have that much time — well then, add more salt, cut back the time it sits. It’s all related:
Thickness of meat : Amount of Salt : Time
And vice-versa, if you need to stretch your time, use less salt. Example: the above steaks that are 1.25″ thick – I should salt for 1 hour 25 minutes. But if my timing works out that I’m not grilling for 2 hours – then I’ll cut back on the salt and let it sit for 2 hours.
If you want to salt for more than 2 hours or overnight – sprinkle the steak with 1/2 the amount of salt that I’ve instructed (look at photos for reference), cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.
3. Rinse all salt off on both sides, pat very dry with paper towels on both sides <- that part is important. Season with fresh ground pepper (no more salt is needed). Grill to your liking. Top with Garlic-Herb Butter immediately to let it oooooze and aaaahhze all over the steak.
Garlic-Herb Butter Recipe
1 stick of unsalted butter, softened (not melted, just softened)
handful of fresh herbs (any combination is fine. My fav is basil and parsley)
1-3 cloves of garlic, smushed in garlic press
To make the Garlic-Herb Butter, combine all ingredients. Lay out a sheet of plastic wrap. Spoon butter mixture on wrap. Roll and shape butter into a log. Refrigerate to firm up for 30 minutes. Slice into 1/4” disks to top the grilled steaks. You can make butter up to 3 days in advance. Make sure you use unsalted butter – the steak is seasoned perfectly already.
Another use for herb butter? 
Notice the consistency in ingredients (first photo and the one below): perfect steak always go so well with homemade shoestring fries or homemade potato chips. The green stuff is just to give color to the plate. Unless it has garlic-herb butter slathered all over it too.
Other steak recipes you might enjoy:
How to dry age steaks at home with Drybag method
Watch me talk about Kobe Beef Burgers on CBS
Artisan Steak Tasting – taste test of 6 steaks from small artisan ranchers
Skirt Steak Tacos Recipe & Parking Adventures of La Tacqueria
No Knead Bread – so easy a caveman 4-yr old can do it
Negative Calorie Chocolate Cake
Garlic Truffle Shoestring Fries
Tropical Island Salmon: cooking fish low ‘n slow creates the most dreamy, silky fish
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Nice work!
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Wow! I have done this basically to Thanksgiving turkey by brining the turkey with salt water and herbs but never to steak! Thanks for the great tips.
I have to say My sister who can’t cook a thing taught me how to make the best steak ever! She drowns it in salt but not any salt… it has to be Hawaiian salt…the pinky stuff! Wow, it’s absolutely delicious! You truly can turn cheap steak to prime gucci steak
I didn’t even know all that. i’m going to make steak tonight based off your directions. i think i can no longer hold the title of “Addie’s best steak” Congratulations Hayette!
This salting process didn’t cause controversy OR confusion in MY kitchen!…..It caused me to be put up on a pedestal with my glass of merlot! Thanks Jaden, you’ve made me “queen of the grill”.
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Interesting indeed, thank you!
I’ve been using just a touch of Kosher salt on my steaks and then cooking them ala ‘reverse sear’. My next steak will be with the “massive amounts” of Kosher that you suggest.
Salting Steaks a success!!!
THank you so much for the process for salting steaks. I grilled two rib eyes last night – unbelievable!!!
great…now i’m absolutely starving.
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hi buddy thanks for the recipe of the salty steak i did what u told and it works but not any wonders the steak had taste but lost a lot of moisture became a bit dry while on the other side i tried it with a freshly salted and peppered minutes before cooking piece of meat that worked wonders and i added a bit of garlic and herb also that my friend turned out marvelous try that and lemmme know……
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this method will cause chaos, confusion and controversy
Here’s my video of doing your steak. Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkCcDy6vGDM
Thanks for inspiration.
The next step would be to marinate in Soy Sauce. Soy Sauce is high in salt and glutamates, which is part of umami (meaty delicious flavor). This increases the beefy-ness of your steaks, and a 15 minute marinade will leave you with the most intensely beefy steak. I would then brown some butter and olive oil and then pan-sear to a nice crispy crust and finish in the oven. I’ve been making my steaks like this since I was 12 and I’ve never realized the science behind it til I picked up the latest cook’s illustrated.
Wow! That is a great explanation!
Thanks for the tips. I am a little bit worried about the effect of all that sauce but it is certainly worth a try.
hey, great article, I can’t wait to try it. BUT— can’t ya keep the language family friendly? Do you think you get extra points for being crude and crass? You will limit your readership wich your foul language. I see no reason to expose kids to such talk, so THEY won’t be on here. Which means the family won’t be very often. Clean up your language. You can convey the wonders of your craft and remain family friendly. Honest. And NO ONE will miss the fould stuff. Honest.
Found this through pure desparation, bought an eye of round roast on accident instead of rib eye steaks. Having my boyfriend over for mushrooms and steak stirfry and didn’t want to disappoint him. I do not doubt this will turn out excellent. Thank you for the best website I’ve stumbled across in a long time.
Awesome post. It all sounds perfectly logical to me, but I read a lot of Alton and McGee. Some of the same principles were used for this Newspaper steak, but I have a feeling your is more consistently reproducible. I’ll be trying this soon – snow be damned.
http://www.gastronomicfightclub.com/blog/food/2005/05/salt-steak.cfm
Thanks for the recipe!! I tried it with steak and asparagus for my girlfrieds birthay. She was blow away and it was way cheaper that going out to eat. I would recommend it to anyone.
I can not wait to try !
I’ve cooked meat like for years, but I recently came accross an AMAZING, and I mean AMAZING little device called a Jaccard Meat Tenderizer. What it does it puts 48 little holes into the exterior of the meat that allows flavour to transmit much faster, and speeds this whole process up by about 20 percent.
Oddly enough by poking all those little wholes, you are not losing flavour but actually allowing the outside to caramalize that much faster.
Amazing device.
http://www.amazon.com/Jaccard-Tendermatic-Meat-Tenderizer-Blade/dp/B001347JK6/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1230627255&sr=8-1
Cheers
Gregory
This is truly great! I like to spinkle finely-ground brown sugar in while making the butter. It almost acts like a glazing effect when butter melts on the steak. Thanks for the tips and keep ‘em coming!!
I tried this last night and it made my ribeye steaks so tender! Do you rinse the steak off or really scrub it under the running water? i just rinsed and they were verging on too salty, but DELICIOUS. lots of emphasis on delicious! thank you for the gucci steak! yum!!
Hi Guys
Great to hear about this method.
Always looking for tender, lean and mean steak.
Just worried that 1 hour of salting will be too much. 1/2 hour sounds much better.
Also I love Rump Steak
Would this method work with rump?
Lastly any one have any recipe’s for some great sauces that can be placed over the steak once its grilled.
PM
PM- Salt based on how thick. Experiment with it – so start with a 1/2 hour and see if you like it. It works on any type of meat – if you’re using rump, just make sure it’s cut thin like a 1″ steak (i.e. not a roast)
Thank you for the great explanation and tips! There is this roast I make now and then at Christmas that you rub with herbs, THEN completely cover under over and around with at least an inch of rock salt and bake till the meat thermometer says done. It is a cheap roast, BUT the salt does exactly what you say and the texture is even through and through. It’s one of my family’s favorites!
NOW, I am excited to try some less expensive steaks and see how this little salt trick works. I feel certain that it will!
One of the commentators here didn’t seem to like your language. Let me say this! I LOVE it! You are so funny, genuine, and real! You admit your mistakes, and have very descriptive ways of letting us know how you feel! Wish I could enjoy a glass of bourbon and ice with you on occasion!! Also, what kid reads recipes? Family friendly? Bah!!! Let your amazing personality show! It’s one reason why I come here!
Off to buy some cheapo steaks!!
All I have to say is THANK YOU!
I sat down at my P/C at 5:30 looking how to cook a good steak and I found this website, our steak dinner was ready by 6:45.
I am not a good cook at all and I love to eat out, esp. steaks, but with economy like it is I am trying to cook more. Thanks to this recipe I finally cooked steaks that my kids loved (without ketchup) but my dogs were a little upset because they did not get their usual left overs. I called my entire family and told them I cooked a steak that tasted Wonderful. Now I can’t wait to cook another steak. My Husband and children thank you also!!!!
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Beautiful Steaks!!
Very nice and lovely steaks.
Wow, now I am hungry! Those look like the best steaks I have ever seen.
I’m going to try this today. Sounds great!!! I’m excited
I like the way you blog. love the pics, love the words! Very amusing
great recipe!!!!!!! My wife and I love meat!, any meat! But steak, especially filet!
What is all the talk lately about the validity of skirt steak?? Great stuff and to the prudes- swear away!!!!!!
this is great. thank you for making it so easy to understand.
it look like delicious. i will try to make this cook.
Very nice and lovely steaks.
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I was appalled to read the comment that asked you to sensor your beautiful language. If I didnt fully enjoy your “voice” I wouldnt have read 1000 words on how to salt a steak. All these grilling children will just have to suck up your use of the word Ass.
nice article! I’m gonna try this with a sirloin I got today. love the pictures lol
if your kid is old enough to read an article about grilling steak, he’s probably old enough to have heard the words “ass” and “crap.” uh ohhhhh I said a swear! :X don’t let your kids near my livejournal.
Very nice informative post. Thanks for sharing what you learned through your hard work.
Why offend any of your readers by using inappropriate language? Leaving out the four-letter words won’t take anything away from your “voice,” but will have the positive effect of showing restraint and maturity. Or, you can just continue appealing to 20-somethings. Up to you.
great info, gonna try it tonight. Article is written very well too. Good to see someone writing, the way that we actually speak. For those who don’t like the language, Well you can go and get Fu#$ed haha
I decided to give this technique a tough–no pun intended–test on a 1.75″ thick “simmering steak.” It worked remarkably well. The resulting steak was tender and juicy, albeit a little salty for my liking. I think I’d be more viogourous with the rinsing or I’ll take off 10 minutes of ‘marinating time.’
BTW – I love your photography!!! Thanks for you sharing your tips.
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We noticed no difference, other than a slight salty taste and a cured-pork-like firmness. If you can find USDA Prime cheap (i.e. Costco/Sams), buy it instead, there is no comparison (buttery melting steak versus briney ham steak???)
I would recommend that everyone trys out the “sous vide” method if they are looking for more bang for your buck. It truly works (i.e. turning a chuck roast into a prime rib is real, albeit 24 hours later.) plus you get a great beefy “au jus” all ready inside the bag.
Hello! Thanks for this tip…I tried it on shoulder steak and couldn’t believe the flavor! It was still a little tough after I left it on for 20 min. tho (less than 1 inch steak), so I was wondering what you’d recommend for a filet mignon timing wise. My parents are coming over for a joint birthday dinner, and I really want to impress them.
Thank you so much!
As a steak lover, I appreciate your steak tips. I’m truly amazed at how simple it is to prepare a prime in this manner. This will be one for my books.
Regards,
Rus
Steak House