Steak Experiments - When Should You Salt Your Steak (S1.E4)

What's wrong with everyone? Thanks for joining us here for another video on this journey to searing the perfect

steak

. Last week we checked to see if it made sense to heat the

steak

to room temperature before putting it in cast iron. This week we are going to try. It does make sense to

salt

your

steak an hour beforehand, right before you put it in the pan or after you're done searing, so stick around if you want to join us on this journey to searing the perfect steak, be sure to subscribe below. so we're going to need three cuts, what we have here, two New York Strip tenderloins, we're just going to cut one of these in half or, frankly, both in half.

Now the next step, as always, we want to pet this. nice and dry, remove all the moisture from the surface of the steak, which will ensure that all the energy from the pan is transferred to the steak, giving it a nice crust instead of evaporating the water, perfect, so now that we've done it this, we're going to take the three most attractive pieces here and season them, so we're going to season one first here and this is the one we're going to give an hour to rest before we put it on. in the pan, flip that over, we're going to do the same thing on the other side, so now we're going to let it sit for an hour, we're going to do another one of these steaks right before we see them in the pen and then another one.

We'll do it later, so stick around so the fillets have been resting for about an hour. Now it's time to turn on the burner and heat up the cast iron so it's ready to sear the steaks, so we'll just turn the burner on here. now let's put that cast iron on the heat so we've had these sticks sitting for an hour we're almost ready to put the steaks in the pan so let's season our last steak here flip it over and do the same thing. The same on the other side, perfect, so now we have the three tests that we are going to do.

We will season this after finishing browning it, just before eating. This is the test, let's see which one gets the best result. the best crust, that has the best flavor and that results in the most tender steak, so stick around, as we always want to make sure that the pan is hot at 400 degrees Fahrenheit, so we have our infrared thermometer. I'm just going to point that out. in the center of the pan we're at 450, so that's totally fine. Now we're going to add avocado oil and the reason we use avocado oil is because it has the highest smoke point of all the oils, so I'm going to do that. put a good portion of that to lift the pan, make sure you have a heat protective glove, make sure there's a good layer around it.

Now we're going to lay out our test fillets, so we're going to let them rest for about three or four. minutes until we get that stuck reaction that caramelizes the bottom of these steaks, now we're going to turn them over and let them rest for another three or four minutes until the internal temperature reaches 130, then we're going to remove them and know they're done. So for our garlic cloves, we just have a few whole cloves here, we're not going to peel them completely, we're just going to take them out and cover them with a chef's knife here and that's just going to come loose. a little bit of flavor and we'll throw them in the pan later like this, now we're going to turn these big ones over, oh look at that, and now we're going to add butter to be generous with the amount of butter that you're adding here now we're going to add the garlic that we just crushed, we're going to add a little bit of rosemary here too just for flavor and we brought it up a little bit before throwing it in the past now once with the melted butter we're just going to want the base of these steaks keeps them nice and juicy adds a little bit of extra flavor to the steak you get the goodness of the rosemary the goodness of the garlic the butter everything just drizzling over the top of the steak here like that it's amazing okay let them go a little bit more okay let's make some contact here , we're looking for 125 to 130, that's about 130 right there, 130 1:31 and it's also time to take the steak boss, just look at that, perfect, so there's the steak we're going to season it later, look , it's false, we season it right before we put it in the pan and then we season the steak an hour before we put it in the pan, so let's wrap them up, let them rest for 10 minutes and we'll cut.

So we've covered it lightly. We also put a little butter right on top of each of these while they're resting so they can melt. Now this is the steak we still have to season. This is the. one that we made right before and this is the one that was an hour before and looking at the crust, I actually think that the best crust is the state in which we season it first, the one we season right before we put it in the pan. Still, it seems like maybe some of the burnt

salt

and pepper hadn't completely dissolved and absorbed into the steak, but let's cut them up and see how they turned out so they all appear to be a very similar level of doneness. so there's no difference in the doneness, but we're going to season this one, put a little bit of fresh sea salt on it, a little bit of freshly ground pepper.

Now we're going to give these guys a taste test starting from right to left hmm um really taste the realistic crunch and the buttery garlic the rosemary mmm textbook dutch very well done the seasoning really just didn't get a chance to absorb into the steak , so you can really taste the salt filled bits that are still on the surface, it just feels like it's a different type of seasoning, maybe you know some people might like it more, but I still prefer to have the seasoning on the steak for a while, let's do the last taste test here, yeah, I'm not a fan of that.

I can really taste the salt super present super forward the same in the pepper. I think you'll be better off this season immediately before pan or an hour before just to let it absorb. I don't think there was a difference in the crust there was no difference in the doneness so there you have it folks. I'll give the winner the seasoning an hour before throwing it in the pan. If you liked this video, please like it below and subscribe. If you'd like to continue joining us on this journey to searing the perfect, cast iron steak, thank you for tuning in.