Comment by ecuzzillo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ecuzzillo | Hacker News Reader

Salting things a while beforehand so the salt penetrates it is a good idea in general. You're supposed to do that to basically any savory food, including chicken, meat, eggs. For big things, like prime rib roasts, you salt it a whole day ahead.

So, this guy compared wrongly-salted expensive steak to correctly-but-very-heavily-salted cheap steak. Unfair.

Also, in general, expensive steak isn't expensive because it's aged. Aged steak is expensive, but the difference between cheap and expensive is more commonly just which part of the cow it is. Filet mignon is a happy tender fatty underused part of the cow. Also, not very much of it per cow.

A good recipe for chicken:

Turn your oven on high (450 if you have ventilation, 425 if not). Coat a 3- or 4-pound chicken with coarse kosher salt so that you have an appealing crust of salt (a tablespoon or so). Put the chicken in a pan, stick a lemon or some onion or any fruit or vegetable you have on hand into the cavity. Put the chicken in the oven. Go away for an hour. Watch some TV, play with the kids, read, have a cocktail, have sex. When an hour has passed, take the chicken out of the oven and put it on the stove top or on a trivet for 15 more minutes. Finito.

From http://blog.ruhlman.com

The difference between prime and choice is not aging, it's marbling. Marbling will also usually be the difference between pricing of different cuts of meat from the same animal, as more often-used muscles will tend to be leaner and tougher.

Right, marbling is what really makes a difference (just look at kobe beef, what is its key characteristic?). Btw, the linked article presents nothing new, over salting+removing is an approach already seen in many other places(even cooking show). As the advice of drying it, essential. @ecuzillo, the salt crust method is perfect for fish, salt encrusted seabass is pretty popular here.

A great way to cook a steak if you have good ventilation is to use a cast iron skillet and heat the skillet in an oven to 500 degrees. Brush the steak with olive oil ahead of time, and make sure it is room temperature (not fridge temperature). Pull the skillet out of the oven, put it on the stove. Turn the burner up on the stove, and cook the steak for 30 seconds on each side, then put the entire skillet back in the oven for 2 minutes on each side.

The steak will be tender and juicy, since searing it at such a hot temperature locks in most of the juices, similar to the way a wound is cauterized.

I only recommend you do this if you have a VERY well ventilated kitchen, as the amount of smoke generated will surely set off any smoke alarms in your house otherwise.

Sidenote: Why is it that a lot of modern kitchens don't have properly ventilated hoods that actually vent outside? It seems ridiculous that most of the hoods over stoves nowadays just recirculate the air back inside. When I want to cook, I want to cook, damn it!

Your instructions provide a perfectly reasonable way to cook a steak, but the theory on searing locking in juices has been proven false (see Good Eats or America's Test Kitchen). The purpose of searing steak is to invoke the Maillard Reaction which dramatically increases flavor:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Searing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction

The step he's missing is resting the protein after it's cooked; over 15 minutes, the juices redistribute themselves throughout the meat.

Here's a fun article on cooking beef: Bob del Grosso, from the Culinary Institute, losing his shit over how Mark Bittman writes up his technique for the NYTimes:

http://ahungerartist.bobdelgrosso.com/2010/01/minimalist-of-...

Interesting, I did not know that. I assumed it was similar to cauterizing a wound.

That is Alton Brown's recipe (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/pan-seared-ri...).

I also sear, then finish off in the oven, especially in the winter when I don't want to brave the snow to get to the grill.

Tip: Most olive oils have relatively lower smoke points, especially if you're using virgin. So, if you want to prevent most of the smoke, try canola oil. The OO isn't doing much for flavor, especially if it's burning. Also, a pat of butter at the end is essential.

Cooks Illustrated just did a piece where they cook the steak in the oven to 120f and finish on in a skillet; I've used it a couple times, and it works really well.

i make a mean peppersteak using a similar technique that I picked up from a local restaurant.

The diff:

1. crack peppercorns spread across a baking sheet. Lay steak upon them. Compress. I use a heavy (cold) skillet. Flip steak. Repeat.

2. Heat oil just beneath the smoke point in pan, otherwise cook steak as described.

3. Serve with any citrus-based steaksauce. (A1 if you have to, but I prefer to make my own OJ based sauce)

The peppercorn crust is quite good.

Take the steak out, drain most of the fat out, toss in a minced shallot, turn the heat off, cook the shallot for about a minute, take the pan off heat and throw in any liquor (brandy, cognac, and cheap bourbon all work great), heat to boil, scrape the bottom of the pan, clean, add mustard, mix, add cream to fill the bottom of the pan, mix, reduce. Steak au poivre!

Beautiful with the peppered crust.

For anyone trying this at home, please note the "take the pan off heat" part of the instructions...

Being able to make a good pan-sauce is a skill that provides one of the best returns on the time investment for a home cook (second only to making your own stocks and glaces.)

I blew a bottle up that way once. It was pretty awesome: there were little splotches everywhere in my kitchen. There are still little splotches in the corners on the ceiling.

Another tip: WRAP THE PAN HANDLE IN SOMETHING HEAT PROOF

In the frenzy of mixing things and moving ingredients around you tend to forget the pan is still at ~500F.

This tip has been brought to you by the scar on my left palm.

It is the eternal bane of the hasty cook that, alas, hot metal looks exactly like room-temperature metal.

This makes sense now, was thinking 500c seemed a bit hot!!!

Filet is more expensive than hanger, and often better.

Dry-aged is more expensive than fresh, and always better.

Prime is more expensive than choice, and always better.

These things all matter. You're right, but I still want to stomp on the confusion about what "prime" means.

I heartily endorse Ruhlman's "too stupid to cook" chicken recipe. Buy two chickens when you do it, save the other for leftovers. Whole chicken is much more economical than breasts.

I think the second point is a matter of taste. Aging is a fermentation process, and it changes the taste of the meat. Some like it, some don't. It's not like prime vs. choice, which is an issue of fat distribution: people almost universally like well-marbled meat vs. lean or fatty chunks.

Part of the effect of dry-aging is the enzymatic breakdown of the proteins and fats (not really "fermentation") and the other part is the reduction in the moisture content of a particular cut. The loss of water weight is one of the reasons a dry-aged cut costs more.

You can replicate a similar process at home by putting your cut of beef in an open container in your refrigerator (be sure to put a small rack under it to get air circulation on the bottom) and letting it sit for 3-4 days. For something like a rib roast the improvement in taste and texture can be quite significant.

I actually prefer Strip or Sirloin to Filet. Filet is tender all the time, but I think the others have more flavor :)

How would you do that with eggs?

Eggshells are actually very porous. Putting eggs in very salty water will see the salt get absorbed through the shell and into the white and yolk.

'Salty eggs' are often used in Chinese food...

If you're frying or baking them, you salt them before they set, rather than after they go on the plate. If you're poaching, you salt the water. If you're doing the crazy poach-in-the-shell stuff, I imagine you do something with the shell porousness, like the sibling comment.

ruhlman is the goddamn man.

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