Steak dry brine

Torrlag för biff

One per cent salt, uncovered, overnight

You need
  • Coarse salt, 1 % of the steak’s weight: 4 g on a 400 g steak

Weigh it. One per cent is the whole recipe, and it is the one place a scale earns its place at a grill. Salted by eye, a thick steak is either bland in the middle or inedible at the edge.

Salt all sides, set it on a rack over a plate, and leave it uncovered in the fridge overnight. Forty minutes works; twelve hours is better. What you must avoid is the window in between: ten minutes in, the surface is wet and will not brown.

Do not rinse it and do not salt it again. A dry, salted surface is exactly what a crust is made of.