How to salt a steak, and when

Ask ten chefs when to salt a steak and you will get three answers: right before it goes in the pan, forty-five minutes ahead, or the night before. They are all right, and the one that goes wrong is the one in between.

The fifteen-minute problem

Salt draws moisture out of meat straight away. For the first ten minutes or so that brine sits on the surface, and if the steak goes into the pan wet it steams instead of searing. Give it longer and the meat reabsorbs the brine, the surface dries again, and you get a seasoned steak with a proper crust.

So: salt it immediately before cooking, or at least forty-five minutes before. Not in between.

Two salts, two jobs

We use two, and so do most of the kitchens we supply.

• Fine sea salt before cooking. About 1% of the meat’s weight — 3 g for a 300 g steak. It dissolves evenly and seasons the meat, not just the outside.
• Flakes after it rests. A pinch, crushed between finger and thumb over the sliced steak. They stay crunchy on the warm meat for a few minutes, which is the whole point.

The oak-smoked flakes work well here too, especially on a steak cooked in a pan rather than over fire.

Overnight, if you can

If you have the fridge space, salt the steak the night before and leave it uncovered on a rack. The surface dries almost like leather, and it takes a darker crust faster, so the inside stays pinker. Take it out half an hour before it goes in the pan.

What not to do

Do not salt a steak with flakes before cooking. They are mostly air, so you use far more than you think, and they dissolve into the pan rather than the meat. Save them for the end.