Salted NY Strip Steak and Herb butter

 

 This is very early photography work-- before I learned about lighting. Please forgive the lack of quality of this phot0, which doesn't do justice to how delicious these steaks were!

I have heard of "salting" steaks as a way to make them juicy and flavorful. Today, I stumbled across a food blog "Steamy Kitchen". She has some pretty cool slide shows where she explains how/why salt makes steak as tender as cutting into butter. It's controversial, I will warn you. If you are on blood pressure meds, and need to be on a restricted low-sodium diet, then don't try this.

There are two very important points, if you decide to try this (which I did):

#1, do NOT use table salt! Use only kosher salt.
#2, Rinse the salt off before grilling. If you fail at both of these, you will feel like you're eating a salt block and you'll hate me for sharing this recipe (actually, it's more of a technique).

I have taken the liberty of copying Jaden's material (below) from her website:

Grilled Steak Recipe with Garlic-Herb Butter

Steak Recipe Step 1: Buy a hunk of steak. I like mine 1.25 to 1.5 inches thick. Any cut of meat: Filet, Sirloin, Rib Eye, Porterhouse, T-Bone and NY Strip – they all work. You can do this with steaks less than 1″, just really watch your timing. If your steak is already superbly marbled – cut back on your timing! The fattier (more marbled) the meat is, the faster the salt works its way through the meat.
Steak Recipe Step 2: About 1/2 to 1-1/2 teaspoons of kosher/sea salt per side. Let it sit at room temperature during salting. You’ll begin to see water on the surface of the meat and on your plate. Don’t use anything other than kosher or sea salt, ok?
Here are guidelines….start with this and adjust salt + timing as you experiment.

MEAT	SALT/SIDE	TIME
Less than 1″	1/2 tsp each side	15 min
1″ thick cut – smallish girly-girl steak, about 4″ across	1/2 tsp each side	30 min
1.25″ -1.5″ (NY Strip, Ribeye) standard thicker steaks can sit longer to let the salt do its work throughout meat	3/4 – 1 tsp each side	45 min
1.25″ – 1.5″ manly-man T-Bone, Porterhouse – more surface area means you use more salt	1-2 tsp each side	45 min
>1.5″ Massive ginormous “Barney Rubble” porterhouse – our fav. I get the strip side, husband gets the filet side	1-2 tsp each side	1 hr or more

Step 3: Rinse all salt off, pat very dry <- that part is important. Season with fresh ground pepper (no more salt is needed). Grill to your liking. Hint: get yourself a grilling thermometer. Top with Garlic-Herb Butter immediately to let it oooooze and aaaahhze all over the steak.

Back to my own material: I liked the way the steak turned out. Yes, you can definitely taste the salt...but I found it to be good.

I also made herb butter to serve on top of the steak. The rest of the butter is wrapped in wax paper and it's in a ziploc bag in my freezer. To complete the meal, I made Onion Straws, grilled zucchini and some garlic bread.

To make the herb butter I used:
1 stick unsalted butter, softened (not melted)
Minced fresh chives, fresh tarragon, fresh parsley
3 cloves of fresh garlic

Herb butter can easily be frozen. Cut a piece and toss into fresh steamed vegetables, or any kind of grilled meat. Delicious!

I'm sure glad that my husband gets "clean up" duty when I make an "all out" date night dinner! Indoor grilling and deep frying... mercy!


I have to say that I'm pretty happy with the grill marks. My only regret is that my husband didn't turn the plate so that you could see how perfectly the steak was cooked- medium rare.