Steak – Is It Acceptable to Cut Steak Before Searing?

A few things:

• grain fed vs corn fed vs grass fed. Each style lends their own flavour to the beef.
  • free range vs. feedlot. Cows fattened on feedlots will have more fat; the meat of free-range cows has a deeper flavour. Feedlot cows will also be more tender.
  • 'Organic' (a word with no meaning really) vs non. Some chefs are concerned with antibiotic and hormonal treatment of cows; generally speaking, something labeled 'organic' is less likely to have been chemically treated while alive.
  • marbling, the degree of intramuscular fat. More marbling = more flavour. Bear in mind of course that some cuts (e.g. tenderloin) have very little intramuscular fat.
  • aged or not, and wet vs. dry. Aging meat allows lactic acid to denature proteins and increase flavour. Dry aging is significantly better for this than wet. However, that comes at a cost, as dry-aged meats must be trimmed, resulting in a lower yield per initial pound of product.

Definitely don't rinse the salt off. One of the nice things the salt does is pull juices to the surface of the meat--not enough to dry things out, but enough so that when the steak hits the hot pan you have a nice protein-laden coating (it's called a pellicle when talking about smoked fish--not sure about steaks) on the outside to caramelize. If you rinse it, you're rinsing that right off.

If your steak was too salty, then just salt more lightly. You don't need a ton, as what you get on there will melt some and mix with the juices and spread out. I think I probably use 1/4 tsp or less per side, and some of that bounces off/misses. And you won't lose the crust with less salt--you won't even lose it with NO salt. It's just easier to get if you use the salt to pull some juices to the surface.

If you have trouble getting good salt distribution, use your fingers and sprinkle it from a little farther up--like 8 inches from the steak. That'll make it easier to get an even sprinkle without dousing it.