For me there isn’t a proper or flawed in terms of cooking. It’s not about following guidelines, it’s about getting the outcomes you need. Why insist on following a rule, when you can’t style the distinction anyway? Some strategies are closely debated. If I’m uncertain what technique is greatest or whether it is definitely worth the further effort, I’ll do experiments to seek out out if I can style or measure the distinction, with an in depth report on this weblog. It’s also possible to watch my video about this matter on YouTube, which I made for the 2024 Sous Vide Summit by the Worldwide Sous Vide Affiliation.
A subject that I’ve seen a number of debates about is salting earlier than or after sous vide. Everyone knows that when you put salt on meals, it would draw out liquid from the meals. So it appears fairly easy and lots of people give this recommendation: salt after sous vide to maintain extra juices in your meat. (The picture exhibits eggplant, as a result of it’s easier to see the liquid popping out. I’ve by no means tried making ready eggplant sous vide.)
As all the time, I wished to base my selection of salting earlier than or after sous vide on experiments relatively than on a theoretical dialogue. As you realize, when meat is cooked, it releases juices. Whenever you prepare dinner meat historically in a pan or on a grill, these juices will evaporate. Whenever you prepare dinner sous vide, the juices will stay within the bag, as a result of they’ve nowhere else to go.
To find out the quantity of juice misplaced through the cooking course of, I weigh the meat with correct scales earlier than and after cooking. After cooking I take the meat out of the bag and dry it with paper towels earlier than weighing.
The distinction in weight as a proportion of the unique weight, tells us the quantity of juice from the meat that was misplaced through the cooking course of. Within the picture that is (138.73-101.15)/138.73 = 27%. When that quantity is decrease, extra juices have remained contained in the meat, so the meat is extra juicy. I weigh the meat earlier than and after as an alternative of measuring the quantity of juices within the bag, as a result of that’s extra correct.
Over time, I’ve executed about 100 of these experiments with differing types and cuts of meat like rooster, beef, pork, lamb, and even duck. Some examples are this put up and this put up. They’ve all had the identical outcome: meat that’s salted earlier than sous vide, will find yourself extra juicy than meat that goes in with out salt!
The typical quantity of juices that’s saved by including salt is 3% of the unique weight of the meat. So for instance when you begin with a steak of 6 ounces or 170 grams, when you salt it earlier than sous vide, you’ll save a couple of teaspoon of juice contained in the steak. That’s not an enormous distinction and you might not be capable of clearly style it, nevertheless it definitely demonstrates that salting earlier than sous vide won’t dry out the meat, and in reality has the other impact.
So how is that this potential? It’s true that salt attracts out liquid, however then the salt dissolves into that liquid, and you’re mainly brining the meat contained in the plastic bag. A few of that salty liquid might be absorbed again into the meat. In the event you wait lengthy sufficient, the salt will penetrate all the best way to the core of the meat. That is merely a matter of diffusion, and it’ll proceed till the focus of salt is identical in every single place within the bag, inside and out of doors of the meat. The time this may take will depend on the thickness of the meat. By the best way, after we say salt diffuses into the meat, we really imply the sodium and chloride ions that salt consists of. They’re so small that they will really diffuse into the meat, in contrast to larger molecules that may solely taste the skin.
If you’re accustomed to brining meat earlier than cooking it, this may in all probability not come as a shock to you. Many individuals use a moist brine, which is water with salt and sometimes sugar dissolved into it, after which soak the meat on this brine. This can trigger the muscle fibers within the meat to swell and take in water, in addition to to higher retain water when cooked. Nonetheless, in my experiments I’ve discovered that many of the brine might be launched once more if you prepare dinner the meat. So ultimately the outcome might be roughly the identical as simply placing salt on the meat and vacuum sealing it. Which is less complicated than having to organize a brine and additionally it is extra sensible to have a sealed bag with meat in your fridge in comparison with a container with liquid. You’ll be able to learn extra about this in this put up. Salting earlier than or after sous vide is not only about reserving meat juices, and the identical goes for brining. In the event you salt earlier than sous vide, the salty taste might be contained in the meat and never simply on the skin. It enhances the pure taste of the meat. The salt contained in the meat can even have an effect on the feel and can make the meat extra tender.
So how a lot salt must you placed on the meat earlier than vacuum sealing it? That is in fact a matter of non-public choice. I like to make use of about 1% salt of the burden of the meat. To make the meat extra juicy and improve its taste much more, you may add extra salt, after which add some sugar as effectively. The sugar will masks the salted taste, so the meat won’t style as salty. A typical quantity can be about 40% of the quantity of salt. Personally I don’t like to do that. The flavour might be stronger, however much less typical. The whole lot will begin tasting the identical when you use an excessive amount of salt and sugar. In the event you use greater than 2% of salt by weight, you’ll treatment the meat and it’ll begin to style like ham. So I principally stick to 1% salt.
Salting earlier than sous vide is particularly necessary when cooking fish sous vide. Fish is a really delicate protein that may be very simply overcooked. Sous vide is an effective way to keep away from that. When cooking fish sous vide, my experiments have demonstrated that salting the fish not less than half an hour earlier than cooking vastly improves the feel. It will likely be extra agency however tender, relatively than mushy and watery. You’ll be able to learn extra about that in this put up. And this brings me to the subject of time. In the event you salt the meat earlier than vacuum sealing, the salt will diffuse into the meat no matter whether or not you let it relaxation first or prepare dinner it sous vide immediately. Nonetheless, my experiments with fish have proven that it does make a distinction whether or not the salt has already subtle into the meat when the cooking course of begins, or diffuses into the meat through the cooking course of.
Once I was doing experiments with the mix of sous vide and freezing for this put up, I had an sudden outcome. Freezing first after which cooking sous vide resulted in a barely decrease lack of juices (6.0%) than simply cooking sous vide with out freezing first (6.5%), whereas one would count on that freezing would trigger further lack of juices. That distinction grew to become even bigger once I defrosted the frozen uncooked rooster breast earlier than cooking sous vide (4.8%). After giving it some thought, I suspected this was brought on by the salt. In the course of the freezing (and defrosting) of the uncooked rooster, the salt has extra time to penetrate into the meat earlier than the cooking begins and I suspected which will trigger the variations.
So then I did a number of experiments the place I cooked meat sous vide immediately after salting and vacuum sealing it and in contrast that to permitting the salt 1 hour or 24 hours to penetrate into the meat earlier than cooking. I did this with meats requiring a brief cooking time comparable to rooster breast, but in addition with cooking occasions of 24 and even 48 hours. A lot of the experiments had been with decrease cooking temperatures.
I’m not saying these had been scientific experiments. The items of meat used for the experiments weren’t precisely the identical. For instance, they my differ in dimension or form, or they may comprise a sinew that might contract the meat when it’s heated, and thus squeeze out extra liquid. The the best way I salted them was additionally not precisely the identical. I did weigh the salt, however the distribution may very well be barely totally different and a few salt may very well be left on the reducing board from salting the opposite facet. So once I repeated the experiments, the outcomes I obtained had been just a few proportion factors aside due to such elements, as you may see within the desk above. The totally different rows for a similar kind of meat and time/temperature point out that I did a number of batches with the identical parameters to see how constant the outcomes had been. I’m a house prepare dinner and I don’t need to throw away meals, so we had been consuming the entire experiments and that restricted the quantity of experiment I may do. And so though I did dozens of experiments, that was not sufficient to common out these random elements. The conclusion that meat that’s salted earlier than sous vide retains extra juices was confirmed by the entire experiments. However the outcomes for various occasions weren’t constant sufficient to attract any agency conclusions. It does appear although that for a brief sous vide cooking time, it’s extra necessary to relaxation the meat between salting and sous vide cooking, then for an extended sous vide cooking time. Though for a char siu marinade pork, permitting it to marinate first did make a distinction in this experiment.
So what’s my recommendation primarily based on all of this?
- At all times salt your proteins earlier than cooking sous vide.
- In case you have the time, enable the salted vacuum sealed protein to relaxation earlier than cooking sous vide, particularly if the sous vide cooking time goes to be quick. However it’s not an enormous deal to prepare dinner it immediately when you don’t have the time to attend.
- For fish it’s important to let it relaxation for not less than half an hour between salting and sous vide cooking.