Broiler Rediscovery

Most of us live in a world devoid of broilers. Even if the top element in your oven has a decent output, unless you work in a professional kitchen or live in a house far beyond your means you do not have a ventilation system that can clear out the voluminous and inevitable smoke that comes with cooking on direct heat. However, with a cool little trick from Cook's Illustrated you can turn it up to 11 with next to no smoke. For this example, I'll use a 1-1.25" thick strip steak, which I always seem to have on hand for some reason.

Take your steak and put a teaspoon of coarse salt on all surfaces of the meat. Put on a roasting rack. This calls forth protein-laden fluids to the surface of the meat, and it is these fluids that are responsible for browning. Let the salted steak sit at room temperature for 1 hour.

Take a cookie sheet and line it with foil. Now, here's the trick: cover the bottom of the cookie sheet that the steak will be over with an even layer of coarse salt. Remove the salted meat from the rack and put the rack on the salt bed. Not the meat. We need to preheat the rack first.

Put the top oven rack in a position so that when the meat will be about 1.5 inches from the heat. You might need to put a casserole dish as a shim underneath the cookie sheet for this. Keep in mind- listen sharp here- that all ovens are different. One and a half inches is not so close in my crappy little oven, but if you have a nice gas broiler five inches is probably a much better distance.

Preheat the cooking apparatus under the hot broiler for five minutes. We're heating that rack before we put the meat on it because metal has networks of tiny little cracks that change their configuration as they heat. Put the meat on when the rack is hot and you can pull it off when the rack is hot. Put the meat on when the rack is cold, the rack heats up and grabs ahold of the meat.

Cookie sheet elevator shim, cookie sheet with its bed of salt, and roasting rack on top. Into the oven, heat it up. Keep the oven door open or the interior of the oven will quickly reach a temperature that will make the element turn off. You don't want that.

Now put your salted meat in its designated position on the rack above the salt bed. Cook for 4-5 minutes per side for a 1.25" steak, or until each side is crusty and dark brown. Note that the salt absorbs the fluid dropped by the meat so that it does not dry out and burn. Also note that the salt is not in contact with the meat so that your supper does not turn into a Mormon holy site.

Once crusty brown on all sides, your meat is cooked. Of course, there are those of us who don't particularly care how done it is, or if it is vocalizing and/or actively struggling. Cook it for longer if you like it medium-well or whatever. Or eat a hot dog. Cold. From the package. Crying.

This salt trick works with hamburgers, sausages, mushrooms, all sorts of broiler applications where the target wants a lot of intense dry heat and you are for some reason unable or unwilling to fire up the grill.