Soldato
- Joined
- 19 Apr 2004
- Posts
- 4,793
- Location
- London
Right, we've had a lot of threads about steak of late and various debates within them about whether you should/shouldn't salt the steak in advance, the best ways to grill etc.
Well, earlier today I had the pleasure of chatting to Jack O'Shea (http://www.jackoshea.com/page-about.php) about seasoning, grilling and beef. Jack is regarded as one of the top butchers in Europe and consults with some of the top chefs including Heston Blumenthal (you may have seen him in the burger episode of the perfection series). It's fair to say he knows a fair bit about every stage of meat consumption, from the cow to the plate!
I mentioned that we had been debating on a forum the value of salting meat in advance, and he was very clear on this - he always salts well in advance (~30mins) of cooking, and advises his customers the same. He said the restaurants that he supplies do this as well. He was quite surprised when I mentioned someone on here suggested Hawksmoor don't as he believed it to be the best way to prepare steak and that the science was quite clear on this. As for whether it's only worth doing on new meat that's not been dry aged - well all his beef is dry aged for around 28-45 days. As I've suggested in the past, it's not just about tenderising the meat, it's also about seasoning it.
Another tip he had though was around grilling - flipping the steak over every 30 seconds. I believe it's been mentioned on here before, but he talked about when he was in Belgium at a food show with the head chef at the fat duck, demonstrating this method of grilling steaks in front of various top chefs in Europe. The theory is that if you flip it every 30 seconds, the juices within the steak will not get the chance to flow out of the steak, as they are constantly changing direction from one way to another. They demonstrated this by cooking 2 different steaks and true enough there was virtually no juice left over from cooking the steak in this manner compared to a fair bit of juice left over from the other steak. I believe it was Harold McGee that first theorised this method of cooking steak, it's a simple tip and worth keeping in mind!
Anyway, hope that's useful to some folk - just don't be afraid of the salt!
Well, earlier today I had the pleasure of chatting to Jack O'Shea (http://www.jackoshea.com/page-about.php) about seasoning, grilling and beef. Jack is regarded as one of the top butchers in Europe and consults with some of the top chefs including Heston Blumenthal (you may have seen him in the burger episode of the perfection series). It's fair to say he knows a fair bit about every stage of meat consumption, from the cow to the plate!
I mentioned that we had been debating on a forum the value of salting meat in advance, and he was very clear on this - he always salts well in advance (~30mins) of cooking, and advises his customers the same. He said the restaurants that he supplies do this as well. He was quite surprised when I mentioned someone on here suggested Hawksmoor don't as he believed it to be the best way to prepare steak and that the science was quite clear on this. As for whether it's only worth doing on new meat that's not been dry aged - well all his beef is dry aged for around 28-45 days. As I've suggested in the past, it's not just about tenderising the meat, it's also about seasoning it.
Another tip he had though was around grilling - flipping the steak over every 30 seconds. I believe it's been mentioned on here before, but he talked about when he was in Belgium at a food show with the head chef at the fat duck, demonstrating this method of grilling steaks in front of various top chefs in Europe. The theory is that if you flip it every 30 seconds, the juices within the steak will not get the chance to flow out of the steak, as they are constantly changing direction from one way to another. They demonstrated this by cooking 2 different steaks and true enough there was virtually no juice left over from cooking the steak in this manner compared to a fair bit of juice left over from the other steak. I believe it was Harold McGee that first theorised this method of cooking steak, it's a simple tip and worth keeping in mind!
Anyway, hope that's useful to some folk - just don't be afraid of the salt!
