One of the great joys of the carnivore way of eating is the art of cooking meat nicely. Most carnivores specifically focus on beef and other red meats. Some even restrict their diet to only beef and water. But I hate to call this "restriction" when steak is one of the greatest foods God's given us! Ask people what their favorite food is and you will hear from a lot of them- even those who claim they could never give up carbs- that it's steak.
Once again the carnivore way of eating is on to something because it turns out the best and easiest way to tenderize meat uses only two of the most necessary foods to the carnivore way of eating- beef and salt. This method has been promoted as the way to turn a cheap steak into Filet Mignon. At the least, it should significantly improve any cut of meat.
Why it works
This method, also called dry brining, works well for several reasons. First, salt breaks down the proteins in the meat, making it, as the name implies, tender. Second, the salt brings water out of the meat so it can be made very dry before cooking. See my reverse sear instructions for details on how to expertly cook your salt tenderized meat. Although the goal is to keep your steak juicy, this isn't done by water held in the meat. A wet steak will steam rather than nicely brown on the outside, so you want your steak to be as dry as possible. Third, salt simply seasons the steak.
Instructions
Salt tenderizing can be used on any cut of meat and there are two ways to use this method- quick or slow tenderizing.
First, determine how long you have to tenderize your steak. If you would like to cook the steak within an hour or so, you will go the quick-tenderizing route. In this case, completely cover all of the surfaces with a generous amount of salt. Don't worry about using considerably more than you would to season a steak since a lot of this will be rinsed off later. If your steak has a lot of fat, this will pull the salt in faster and you may want to u
Next, determine the amount of time to let your steak sit based on how thick it is. The simple run is one hour for every inch of thickness. So a 1 inch steak will sit for an hour, while a 1.5 inch steak will sit for an hour and a half.
If you have anywhere from a few hours to a few days to tenderize your steak, you will be able to go the slow tenderizing route. In this case, salt the steak on all sides but only use the amount of salt you would use to season the steak if you were cooking it. In this amount of time, the steak will absorb all or almost all of the salt, so using more than this will result in a very salty steak.
The next step, regardless of whether you are using the slow or quick method, is to let your steak sit, tenderize, and dry. A classic steak cooking tip is to let you steak sit out for around 20-60 minutes in order to bring it up to room temperature before cooking. The theory is that the closer to the room temperature, the more evenly the steak will cook since extra energy is not being used to warm up the steak before cooking. It's controversial whether this actually make any difference, since the inside of a steak actually changes little in temperature in this amount of time, but if you'd like to be safe or stick with tradition, plan ahead to let your stick sit out for a while before cooking. So if your steak will only be tenderizing for about an hour, you can leave it out as soon as you've salted it. Otherwise, transfer it to the fridge until then. Letting your steak sit uncovered in the fridge will help dry the outside of it. If you have a wire metal rack, set the steak on a rack over a baking sheet. If you don't, a plate or whatever dish you will bake it on will work fine. If there are odors in your fridge that may get picked up by your uncovered steak, try to remove these or neutralize them before putting your steak in the fridge. A simple way to do this is to place a small bowl of baking soda in your fridge, which will absorb odors efficiently.
A note about salt
Make sure to use kosher or sea salt. The very small crystals of table salt will not tenderize as well and could make your steak overly salty tasting. Sea salt also contains a lot of beneficial nutrients which your body was designed to get along with salt, compared to table salt which has been stripped of these. Most sea salts have not been fortified with iodine like table salt, but I don't worry about iodine following a carnivore way of eating. Check out Dr. Georgia Ede's theory on iodine here for why not.
Cook it!
When it's time to cook your steak, if you've chosen the quick tenderizing method, rinse the steak well to remove excess salt. For either method, pat your steak as dry as possible with a towel or paper towel.
Now your steak is ready to cook! Check out my instructions for the perfect reverse sear steak here.