Alternately, if you dry your meat with a duck it will promote the Mallard Reaction.
this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
66 points (94.6% liked)
You Should Know
33044 readers
264 users here now
YSK - for all the things that can make your life easier!
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must begin with YSK.
All posts must begin with YSK. If you're a Mastodon user, then include YSK after @youshouldknow. This is a community to share tips and tricks that will help you improve your life.
Rule 2- Your post body text must include the reason "Why" YSK:
**In your post's text body, you must include the reason "Why" YSK: It’s helpful for readability, and informs readers about the importance of the content. **
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding non-YSK posts.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-YSK posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.
If you harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
If you are a member, sympathizer or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- The majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.
Partnered Communities:
You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.
Community Moderation
For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.
Credits
Our icon(masterpiece) was made by @clen15!
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
We call that the dryducken method
Adding some detail. Evaporating water takes way more energy than just heating it up.
When you put energy (heat) into water that's below 100c it gets hotter. When you add 4,184 to a liter of water the temperature goes up by 1c. If the water is already at 100c it takes 2,260,000 to turn that into 100c steam. The energy that goes into turning water into steam isn't going into the steak.
So if you put a wet steak on the grill it will create an insulating layer of steam that keeps the steak at around 100c (even if the pan is above 100c).
That's also why you only salt your steak right before or after heating it. If you let salt sit on the steak it will draw out moisture, reducing the Maillard reaction and drying out the steak.
For a great practical way to grill the steak perfectly, check out videos on "cold searing".
You can and should actually salt your steak several hours before cooking, leaving them uncovered in the fridge. Water will be drawn out, and then reabsorbed along with the salt. Dry the surface and salt again if desired right before cooking.
Yep, salt the steak heavily the night before and leave on a wire rack in the fridge uncovered. This is called a dry brine and it's miles better than the bland steak you get with a salty crust and watery inside if you only salt just before or after cooking.
Leave your steak/chops in the fridge either uncovered or loosely with paper towel, and the meat surface should be dried enough to get a good browning.
And if it's steak especially, leave it out for a half hour to get closer to room temp before cooking.
Ever since I learned this tip I've been cooking perfect steaks. Makes a huge difference.
Empirical evidence suggests that it takes many hours for the center of the steak, the part that matters for doneness, to rise any appreciable amount.
Drying the outside of your steak is good advice because your can see the results. The same with brining because you can taste it.
If your technique is otherwise good whether that's low/slow or hot/fast then "letting it warm up" is just bunk advice.
Another note is that if your cooking set up can't crank up high enough to get a good sear fast then you may benefit from the center being cold to start with to give you more time to develop the crust.
This has virtually no impact. Salt is more important.
Depends on how you're cooking. It's all about that heat gradient!
Out on an open grill on medium heat for 20 minutes? Yeah, literally zero difference.
Pan fried on a cast-iron skillet that you've cranked up to ludicrous mode? That shit better be room temp if you want the inside to reach a safe temperature!
... and to those of you who cook steak but have never panfried: what are you doing? Get yourself some peanut oil, crank the heat to 11, and get cooking ASAP. Look up a guide because nailing the doneness will be hard, but I guarantee you that you'll become a better cook after a few attempts. It's a rite of passage, my fellow meatheads.
A fresh steak should be safe to eat raw. I've never heard of a target temp for food safety for steak either tbh.
If anything bringing steak to "room temp" would be more likely to bring it in a danger zone.
I’ve never heard of a target temp for food safety for steak either tbh
Well... believe it or not there is a suggested internal temperature for cooking beef, even if it's not ground. The CDC recommends 145F (~63C) and FSA recommends 70C (~158F). It's certainly true that beef is one of the safer meats to eat at undercooked temperatures (at least in the U.S. & U.K.), but it's also true that you can achieve just about any level of doneness beyond blue while still following food safety guidelines.
As I've said elsewhere, I have difficulty maintaining a super-sterile kitchen, so I can't practically leave meat out at room temperature all day without risking food poisoning. I instead opt to expedite the process by microwaving at low power. Even if you view these guidelines as silly, there remains the practical application of being able to sear thicker cuts without leaving an overly raw center. When your total cook-time is <5 minutes, these things matter.
Cooking a fresh steak to 63 degrees sounds like a waste of money to me. ( And so does cooking chicken to 70) But I think we can all agree to that because we know those are the temperatures that indicate safety if it reaches that for 1 second. And lower temperatures over time are also good.
Generally I prefer reverse searing steak because it allows for a tender perfect inside with a hard crust and no gradients in the doneness. But if I don't have time for that (or for a sous vide waterbath) I just cook straight out of the fridge in a cast iron while flipping every thirty seconds. And for anyone doubting that flipping 30 seconds is superior to not touching it before flipping once: your steaks will be less evenly cooked which I don't like but you are free to do so ofcourse. Read Kenji's article on it if you don't believe me: https://www.seriouseats.com/the-food-lab-flip-your-steaks-and-burgers-multiple-times-for-better-results
In the case of your own fried/ludicrous mode example, leaving the steak out at room temperature for even a few hours has basically no effect. It takes a long time for the bulk of the steak to warm any appreciable amount.
“After the first 20 minutes—the time that many chefs and books will recommend you let a steak rest at room temperature—the center of the steak had risen…not even a full two degrees…After 1 hour and 50 minutes, the steak was up to 49.6°F in the center”
load more comments
(1 replies)
Finally, an actual and legit YSK. Thank you very much my good sir.
The glass of water should be saved for last, and poured over the steak just before devouring.
Mmmm... Sloppy steaks. The waiters hate em!
thats interesting, now im curious if it would help for mine, i usually put a lite coating of oil on my steaks then cook at 700 degrees, i found the oil helps with the charring but still gets good marks on the meat.
Putting any piece of meat on the grill at 700° is going to leave good marks.
I usually put mine on at 45° but then rotate it to 90° to get good grill marks. /s
load more comments
(4 replies)
Does this apply to hamburger too?
To a degree yes. Moisture in general will limit browning. Fresh ground beef is usually dry enough. Frozen and defrosted ground beefwill have ice/water. Patting it dry with a paper towel takes care of this.
Ground turkey in particular is super wet all the way through so paper towels won't really be able to get it all. To brown ground turkey, you put a big patty on the grill and don't break it up, then wait for several minutes. This allows the surface to evaporate the water and then begin browning. If you break it open it will release the water inside the big ball of meat and it'll take forever to evaporate enough for browning to start. You break it open later on after you've browned top and bottom.
Dear God
They can't stop you from ordering a steak and a glass of water!
Understood: I will freeze dry all meat before cooking it to remove all moisture.
You only want the surface dry.
Gotcha. I’ll carve off the edges of my steak, freeze dry those, and use meat glue to reattach them to the main, non-dried steak after.
Why don't you just cover the steak in those silica gel desiccant beads like a normal person? Weirdo.
There are people who cook wet meat? I mean there are people who do not know that baking soda is a wonderful tenderizer.
Hello, I am people
load more comments
(2 replies)
view more: next ›