Now we’re getting random!

Hehe, okay, this is going to be an off-the-beaten-path kind of post, but a good friend of mine requested a certain recipe I used during my trip to Seattle to treat everyone to a rather tasty meal of salad, steak and LOVVEEEEEE.

Here’s the stuff you’re going to need for my recipe:

• Zesty Italian Salad Dressing (It should have clear consistency, not creamy, vinegary feel to it)
• Mixed salad (preferably iceberg and/or American lettuce mix with assorted veggies inside)
• Kosher or Sea salt. Lots. (DO NOT USE REGULAR TABLE SALT)
• Your choice of cuts of meat, aim for 1″ or 1.5″ (2.5 - 4cm) thickness or more if you like that stuff. I use top-sirloin myself for this particular serving. Name it Steak-san, or if you want to be cute, Steak-tan!  This is an important step!  If you don’t name the steak it will not gain its feeling of individuality and thus will not develop the super-important Id, ego and superego of PURE DELICIOUS.
• A large and shallow marinading dish.
• Some paper towel.
• One plate for each cut of steak you’re preparing.
• A SOURCE OF FIRE AND OR HEAT AND OR… something to cook on. I used a flat grill for my run.

I will cut the rest of this post below the link, cause it’s long! :D

Important stuff to remember:

Kosher salt and Sea salt are not like table salt. Table salt is iodized, and that really really sucks for long term seasoning. If you use table salt for this recipe you better like the taste of IODINE cause you’re going to be chewing it for a while! Personally I prefer Kosher salt over sea salt for this, it just seems to have a better success rate and end result, plus it washes off so nice and fast and leaves no residue or taste behind.

Meat Preparation

1. Prep your cuts of meat. If it’s strung, remove the strings. If it’s very thick, it’s optional to take a serrated knife or steak knife and slice it down the middle to make two steaks. In fact, I really recommend this as it improves overall consistency if your steak is at-or-over an inch thick. If your steak was strung, let it sit for five minutes to allow it to shape out.
2. Massage the steak. I know it sounds stupid, but start from the center and press slowly and gently out to the edges. Basically we’re opening little pores all over the surface of the steak to allow the salt to sink in nice and deep. Do this on both sides. Steak-san is stressed and needs to relax.
3. Now that you have your cut (or two cuts if you split it) ready, pull one of the plates close. Do not put Steak-san into the plate yet, there’s still stuff to go through.
4. Salt the plate. And I mean /salt the plate/. Be generous. you should not be able to see the bottom of the plate through the salt, I usually ensure I have about a half-centimeter worth on the bottom of the plate.
5. Okay, NOW put it into the plate, on top of the salt. Yay, nice salt bed for Steak-san!
6. Salt the now exposed top of the steak until you cannot see the top of the steak. Trust me, just do it!
7. Estimate the measure of the steak. Leave the salt sink in like this for 30min + 15min for every half inch. For example if you have half inch steaks, leave the salt do it’s salty thing for 45 minutes. For a full inch, an hour.
8. Hurry up and wait, or get the next set of steps done.

Marinade Prep

I’ll explain a bit more on the marinade I mentioned above before I continue. I do indeed mean to use salad dressing, and in fact, some salad dressing have a dual purpose (and at times it’s labelled) dressing/marinade. Make sure it’s vinegary dressing, no creams. I’ve tried with creams and I didn’t ever get good reviews from the process. Stuff like Catelli Italian Dressing is fine, you can get more haut-classe stuff if want to be mister mc.fancypants! :)

1. Take your shallow dish.
2. Pour dressing in until you have a little shallow lake thing going on.
3. Drink the rest. (DON’T DO THIS I AM KIDDING.)
4. Wait.

Post Salt-Prep

1. Take the steaks and bring them to your kitchen sink.
2. Rinse them under cold running water to remove all the salt, all of it. Careful with the steaks at this time, they will be unbelievably tender and you may end up tearing them if you don’t handle them well.
3. Pat the steaks dry with a paper towel to remove excess water.
4. Set the steaks into the marinading dish.
5. Pour more marinade/vinegarette atop the steaks.
6. Cleanse your hands under water, and then massage the steaks gently again, top side only this time.
7. Flip the steaks over, repeat, and then flip them over once more.
8. Let at least 15 minutes pass.  (or if you want, longer for marinade)

While you’re waiting, heat up your grill or plaque or whatnot that you want to use your steaks while you wait those 15 minutes. When it’s all said and done, put the steaks direct upon the grill from the dish. No need to rinse. Cook until desired rareness/well done state is achieved and serve with your salad and dressing!

With this technique, even tough steaks become as tender and melty as Fillet Mignon or a Tiempeau Cut you’d find at a 5star hotel for $35.00. Contact me anytime if you have questions or want more recommendations!

SUPER BONUS ROUND! How to keep steaks juicy even when cooking!

Some of my friends complain that their shallow cut steaks tend to get dry or weird when they cook them. Usually what happens is when you’re doing grilling, water vapor rushes away from the heat of the grill and leaves parts of the meat dry and stringy. Not a good thing. There’s a very simple way to avoid this sort of problem if you use a closed-base grill (like a flat griddle or teflon pan), this technique also works on open-base cookwear but not as well.

Take a tin dish (like a pie tin, or a take-out dish you’d find in some Asian restaurants) and simply place it upside down while cooking your meat. This takes the vapor, traps it, and lets it drip back down to the steak. It really makes a difference in the long run. If you’re caught without access to either of those, you can take a long sheet of foil paper and fold it once over itself then taper the edges downwards to form a sort of really shallow dish and place over your cooking meat. Anything is better than nothing, especially ESPECIALLY if you’re cooking medium-well to well done, as meat tends to scorch over time!

Let me know what you think!