As there are chefs in the world, there are so many opinions on how to properly salt meat. Some people argue that it is best to add some salt just before placing the meat in the pan or oven. Others believe that it is not worth salting the meat; it is better to add salt directly to the pan and put a piece of meat there. And still, others insist on salting a piece in a few hours or even days. So how do you know which of them is right?
If you experiment, it turns out that steaks that were salted immediately before cooking were much better than those that were salted during cooking or those that were salted 10-15 minutes before cooking. In addition, each of the pieces was at the same room temperature and the same size before cooking. Only the salting technology was changed.
So how does it work? Immediately after salting, the grains remain on the surface of the meat and dissolve. All steak juices at that time are inside the muscle fibers. Within 3-4 minutes, the salt will begin to extract liquid from the meat through the osmosis process. Accordingly, you will lose some of the moisture even before it is in the pan. This way, if you add salt just before frying or baking, all the moisture will be retained inside the steak.
Starting from about 10 to 15 minutes after salting, the brine formed by the salt will begin to erode the muscle structure of the meat, while helping the meat to absorb more moisture that has formed from the salt. However, this whole process takes a lot of time, so the meat will still work with salt from 3 to 40 minutes.
By the end of 40 minutes, most of the liquid is finally absorbed into the piece and gives it more richness and aroma. In this way, the meat absorbs all the salt and returns the moisture that the salt pulled out. If you leave a piece of meat for 1 night, then the moisture is reabsorbed and you will get much richer meat in which all the moisture has been preserved.
Therefore, if you have time, salt the meat for 40 minutes to 1 night. If you don’t have 40 minutes, it’s better to add salt just before cooking. Salting meat for 3 to 40 minutes is one of the worst ways in which you lose too much muscle moisture. And accordingly, the piece will be dry and tough.
If we talk about salt itself, then it is also important to choose the right option. After all, before cooking, the steak should be salted with fine non-iodized salt. Since the small size of the crystals allows the outer layer of the meat to dry quickly. But large crystals of salt will remain on the surface and the fibers will not be able to quickly absorb them.
By the way, it is interesting that meat loses more moisture during frying when muscle fibers are compressed as a result of heat supply and squeeze the liquid out. Therefore, if during frying you see a lot of moisture in the pan, be calm, this is a normal process that any piece of meat goes through.
But salting and preparing a piece is only half the battle. The other half is quality meat. Indeed, the moisture of the meat and its tenderness depend on how fresh it is and how young the animal was. Therefore, to cook the perfect piece of pork or beef, buy meat from trusted producers.
