YSK: You should dry off beef before cooking. Doing so promotes the Maillard Reaction, which will make the meat taste and look better.
YSK: You should dry off beef before cooking. Doing so promotes the Maillard Reaction, which will make the meat taste and look better.
If you plan on cooking tonight, chances are you'll be using the Maillard reaction to transform your raw ingredients into a better sensory experience.
Why YSK: When you cook meat, any water on the surface must first evaporate before much browning can occur. You want to get as much of a Maillard reaction as possible in the limited cooking time you have before the meat reaches the correct internal temperature. Removing the moisture first means that the heat of the cooking surface isn't wasted on evaporation and can instead interact with the meat to form the complex sugars and proteins of the Maillard reaction.
I'm not sure if it is covered in the article but you can achieve extra maillard reaction with a more deeply seasoned, juicer, tender steak with a dry brine.
It's super simple, it just takes time. Salt your steak all over and stick it in the fridge on a wire rack overnight.
If you check the steak within about 3 minutes you'll see the salt drawing out moisture into little beads on the surface. This would be a bad time to cook, you'd lose that moisture and waste energy boiling the surface liquid off your meat, resulting in a grey bland steak. Over the next hour the juices dissolve the salt, making the brine. Leave it for several hours and the salt will diffuse into the meat and... Do science to the protein (read the dry brine article on serious eats, it explains all!). This will make the interior of the steak extra juicy and the exterior extra dry for a great crust. If you put the steak on the rack the circulating air also dries out the surface.
If you're buying a decent steak it's well worth the near zero effort that this takes.
Finally, an actual and legit YSK. Thank you very much my good sir.
Wrapped in cheese cloth in the fridge for a week will REALLY bring the flavor from beef. I've done this technique with various cuts of roast and the results are always outstanding. Also don't forget to make the Yorkshire Pudding.... BTW, Better Than Bullion is a good substitute if you don't get enough drippings.
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".
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.
When we cook food a chemical reaction called the "Maillard reaction" occurs. It has both positive and negative effects. Some products of this reaction act as antioxidants, which are good for our health.. but there is one product called acrylamide that is likely to cause cancer in humans. acrylamide forms from a substance called asparagine found in certain starchy foods like fried snacks, breakfast cereals, baked goods, and roasted coffee beans. The amount of acrylamide produced depends on how long you cook the thing, temperature, and other factors, making it hard to determine exactly how much acrylamide we eat from these foods.
Man the simple little things I've learned from cooking channels on YouTube like Adam ragusea, binging with babish etc have made it so fun to cook at home.
