Meat being salted
So, being a cheapskate and an aficionado of eating carcasses I decided this needed to be tested. And being a huge nerd, I decided to test it scientifically. So I bought two flat iron steaks and covered one of them in sea salt for 40 minutes, while leaving the other one untouched. After grilling them both well done—no pink—it was time to taste test. Both of my blind test panelists (a.k.a. my wife and daughter) failed to pick out the meat that had gone through the process. For myself, I thought the salted meat was a teeny bit more tender, but that could just be observer bias.
So, sadly, it looks like this myth is busted. But it did provide an opportunity to put my daughter on the path of the scientific way, which is a Good Thing.
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I was wondering when you were going to do this as I was interested in trying it again. As I read the first paragraph, I was thinking, I hope he cooked a control steak.
And you totally delivered. Alas, you couldn’t do double blind, but one does what one can.
It’s disappointing that salt can’t magically make cheap steaks taste better. Are you going to continue with the experiment and do some dry aging?
I think I will unleash science on the theory of using lemon juice to tenderize meat for the next little project.
Should be interesting, and I think it will work.