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Tom Davin's Pan-Grilled Steak
Plaster one side of a tender, thick beefsteak with coarse kitchen salt until a thick coating is formed. Lay it, salt side down, in a sizzling thick iron frying pan, and cook until the salt crusts. Meanwhile, cover the other side heavily with salt. Turn steak carefully and cook until salt hardens on this side also. Move to a cooler corner of the fire and finish cooking, turning once again. Allow 2-3 minutes longer than when pan-boiling a steak in the usual manner. Remove from pan, crack off the salt crust, lay steak on a hot plate, sprinkle with salt and freshly ground pepper, and spread with melted butter.
This is a practical variation of the Indian method of roasting meat in clay, and achieves the same result of sealing in all the juices. It might seem that this dish would taste salty, but not a trace of the salt coating is left on the meat.
A salt-crust pan steak from the outdoor-cooking tradition, written for a wood fire and a heavy iron pan. The method works indoors with adjustments.
- The hingeThe salt must form a hard, dry crust before the steak is turned, and the pan must be genuinely sizzling when the steak goes in. If the pan is only moderately hot the salt dissolves in the meat juices and you get brine rather than a shell.
- Salt to use"Coarse kitchen salt" means a coarse-grained salt rather than fine table salt. Kosher salt or coarse sea salt both work; fine table salt packs too tightly and will penetrate the meat.
- How muchNo quantity is given. Expect to use a cup or more of coarse salt for a single thick steak, since the coating is meant to be thick enough to crack off in sheets.
- "Pan-boiling"Almost certainly pan-broiling (dry-pan searing): cooking in a hot, ungreased iron pan with no added liquid. The instruction to allow 2-3 minutes longer than usual is the only timing given.
- A cooler corner of the fireOn a modern range, this means dropping the burner to low. The point is to move the steak off direct high heat once both crusts have set.
- Thickness mattersA thin steak will overcook before the crust does its work; the recipe calls for a thick cut, such as a strip, ribeye or sirloin, and it is safer to cook to your usual internal temperature than to trust time alone.
- SmokeCoarse salt on a screaming-hot iron pan indoors produces considerable smoke and spitting. Ventilation, or the outdoor fire the recipe assumes, is worth arranging.
- Cracking off the crustDo this over a board or the sink, not the plate, and brush away loose grains before saucing. The final sprinkle of salt in the original is optional once you have tasted the meat.