For me there isn’t any proper or improper in terms of cooking. It’s not 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 greatest or whether it is well 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. You may as well watch my video about this subject on YouTube, which I made for the 2024 Sous Vide Summit by the Worldwide Sous Vide Affiliation.
A subject that I’ve seen quite a lot of debates about is salting earlier than or after sous vide. Everyone knows that in the event you put salt on meals, it is going to 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 photograph exhibits eggplant, as a result of it’s simpler to see the liquid popping out. I’ve by no means tried getting ready eggplant sous vide.)
As at all times, I wished to base my selection of salting earlier than or after sous vide on experiments quite than on a theoretical dialogue. As you realize, when meat is cooked, it releases juices. Whenever you cook dinner meat historically in a pan or on a grill, these juices will evaporate. Whenever 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 in the course of 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 share of the unique weight, tells us the quantity of juice from the meat that was misplaced in the course of the cooking course of. Within the photograph 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 a substitute of measuring the quantity of juices within the bag, as a result of that’s extra correct.
Through the years, I’ve carried out about 100 of these experiments with differing kinds and cuts of meat like rooster, beef, pork, lamb, and even duck. Some examples are this submit and this submit. 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 common 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’s not an enormous distinction and it’s possible you’ll not have the ability to clearly style it, nevertheless it definitely demonstrates that salting earlier than sous vide won’t dry out the meat, and in reality has the alternative impact.
So how is that this doable? 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 will likely be absorbed again into the meat. When 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 identical all over the place within the bag, inside and outdoors of the meat. The time it will take depends upon the thickness of the meat. By the way in which, once we say salt diffuses into the meat, we truly imply the sodium and chloride ions that salt consists of. They’re so small that they’ll truly diffuse into the meat, in contrast to larger molecules that may solely taste the surface.
If you’re aware of 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. It will trigger the muscle fibers within the meat to swell and soak up water, in addition to to higher retain water when cooked. Nevertheless, in my experiments I’ve discovered that a lot of the brine will likely be launched once more once you cook dinner the meat. So ultimately the outcome will likely be roughly the identical as simply placing salt on the meat and vacuum sealing it. Which is simpler than having to arrange 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 possibly can learn extra about this in this submit. Salting earlier than or after sous vide is not only about reserving meat juices, and the identical goes for brining. When you salt earlier than sous vide, the salty taste will likely 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 will even 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 in fact a matter of private 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 possibly can 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 could be about 40% of the quantity of salt. Personally I don’t like to do that. The flavour will likely be stronger, however much less typical. All the things will begin tasting the identical in the event you use an excessive amount of salt and sugar. When you use greater than 2% of salt by weight, you’ll treatment the meat and it’ll begin to style like ham. So I largely persist with 1% salt.
Salting earlier than sous vide is very necessary when cooking fish sous vide. Fish is a really delicate protein that could be very simply overcooked. Sous vide is a good way to keep away from that. When cooking fish sous vide, my experiments have demonstrated that salting the fish at the least half an hour earlier than cooking drastically improves the feel. It will likely be extra agency however tender, quite than mushy and watery. You possibly can learn extra about that in this submit. And this brings me to the subject of time. When 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. Nevertheless, 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 in the course of the cooking course of.
After I was doing experiments with the mixture of sous vide and freezing for this submit, 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. 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 quite a lot of experiments the place I cooked meat sous vide instantly 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 similar to rooster breast, but in addition with cooking instances of 24 and even 48 hours. Many of the experiments have been with decrease cooking temperatures.
I’m not saying these have been scientific experiments. The items of meat used for the experiments weren’t precisely the identical. For instance, they my differ in measurement or form, or they may include a sinew that will 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 could possibly be barely totally different and a few salt could possibly be left on the slicing board from salting the opposite facet. So once I repeated the experiments, the outcomes I received have been a couple of share factors aside due to such components, 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 have been. I’m a house cook dinner and I don’t wish to throw away meals, so we have been consuming all the 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 components. The conclusion that meat that’s salted earlier than sous vide retains extra juices was confirmed by all the experiments. However the outcomes for various instances 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.
- When 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 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 at the least half an hour between salting and sous vide cooking.
