For me there is no such thing as a proper or improper on the subject of cooking. It isn’t about following guidelines, it’s about getting the outcomes you need. Why insist on following a rule, in the event you can’t style the distinction anyway? Some strategies are closely debated. If I’m not sure what technique is finest or whether it is well worth the further effort, I’ll do experiments to search 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 numerous debates about is salting earlier than or after sous vide. Everyone knows that in the event you put salt on meals, it’ll 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 less difficult to see the liquid popping out. I’ve by no means tried making ready eggplant sous vide.)
As at all times, I wished to base my alternative of salting earlier than or after sous vide on experiments reasonably than on a theoretical dialogue. As you realize, when meat is cooked, it releases juices. If you cook dinner meat historically in a pan or on a grill, these juices will evaporate. If you cook 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 throughout 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 throughout 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 carried out about 100 of these experiments with differing types and cuts of meat like rooster, beef, pork, lamb, and even duck. Some examples are this publish and this publish. They’ve all had the identical end result: 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 in the event you begin with a steak of 6 ounces or 170 grams, in the event you salt it earlier than sous vide, you’ll save a couple of teaspoon of juice contained in the steak. That isn’t an enormous distinction and it’s possible you’ll not have the ability to clearly style it, but it surely actually demonstrates that salting earlier than sous vide is not going to dry out the meat, and actually has the alternative 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 principally brining the meat contained in the plastic bag. A few of that salty liquid might be absorbed again into the meat. Should you wait lengthy sufficient, the salt will penetrate all the way in which to the core of the meat. That is merely a matter of diffusion, and it’ll proceed till the focus of salt is similar in all places within the bag, inside and out of doors of the meat. The time it will take is determined by the thickness of the meat. By the way in which, 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 greater molecules that may solely taste the surface.
In case you are acquainted with brining meat earlier than cooking it, it will most likely not come as a shock to you. Many individuals use a moist brine, which is water with salt and infrequently 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 raised retain water when cooked. Nonetheless, in my experiments I’ve discovered that a lot of the brine might be launched once more once you cook dinner the meat. So ultimately the end result 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 may learn extra about this in this publish. Salting earlier than or after sous vide is not only about reserving meat juices, and the identical goes for brining. Should you salt earlier than sous vide, the salty taste might be contained in the meat and never simply on the surface. It enhances the pure taste of the meat. The salt contained in the meat may also have an effect on the feel and can make the meat extra tender.
So how a lot salt do you have to placed on the meat earlier than vacuum sealing it? That is after all a matter of private desire. 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 would add extra salt, after which add some sugar as properly. The sugar will masks the salted taste, so the meat is not going to 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. Every thing will begin tasting the identical in the event you use an excessive amount of salt and sugar. Should you use greater than 2% of salt by weight, you’ll remedy the meat and it’ll begin to style like ham. So I largely keep on with 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 is going to be extra agency however tender, reasonably than mushy and watery. You may learn extra about that in this publish. And this brings me to the subject of time. Should 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 cook dinner it sous vide right away. 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 throughout the cooking course of.
Once I was doing experiments with the mixture of sous vide and freezing for this publish, I had an sudden end result. 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 anticipate 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 attributable to the salt. Throughout 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 that will trigger the variations.
So then I did numerous experiments the place I cooked meat sous vide straight away 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 resembling rooster breast, but additionally 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 may contract the meat when it’s heated, and thus squeeze out extra liquid. The the way in which I salted them was additionally not precisely the identical. I did weigh the salt, however the distribution may very well be barely completely different and a few salt may very well be left on the slicing board from salting the opposite aspect. So once I repeated the experiments, the outcomes I obtained had been a couple of proportion factors aside due to such components, as you may see within the desk above. The completely 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 cook dinner and I don’t wish to throw away meals, so we had been consuming the entire experiments and that restricted the quantity of experiment I might do. And so though I did dozens of experiments, that was not sufficient to common out these random components. 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 a protracted 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.
- When you’ve got the time, permit the salted vacuum sealed protein to relaxation earlier than cooking sous vide, particularly if the sous vide cooking time goes to be brief. However it isn’t a giant deal to cook dinner it right away in the event 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.
