"...add two teaspoons dried oregano, a splash of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon juice, and season with salt and pepper; toss to combine...."
Are we all familiar with this refrain? Seasoning with salt and pepper has become so ubiquitous in culinary lore as to be holy writ. It's just how it's done.
Well, to the pious who subscribe unthinkingly to that sort of dogma, I say thus: Pay special attention to the lyrics.
I also pose to you a question: would you season all your food with salt and cinnamon? In all the instances in which you would season a particular food item with pepper, would you willingly substitute cinnamon?
No?
Then why do you spice it with pepper? Hm?
Because in point of fact, pepper is not a seasoning. It is a spice.
Salt, sweetness, acidity, umami, and to lesser degrees, bitterness and heat, are all seasonings. Pepper is a spice in the same league as nutmeg, coriander seed, cumin, and cinnamon.It isn't needed in every instance.
Where I'm going with this line of thought? - everything you ever make in the kitchen, assuming it's a savoury item intended for consumption at some point before dessert, does not need pepper in order to be seasoned properly.
To those who wonder aloud at this, I challenge you thusly: make a basic cream sauce (saute a minced onion in 4tbsp olive oil, add 4tbsp flour, cook for 1 minute, whisk in 1 liter 10% cream, cook on medium high heat until thickened - once it hits a high simmer, cook for roughly two(2) minutes), then split it into two separate batches. Season one with salt and the requisite amount of pepper you normally would season your food with (in most cases, a hell of a lot), and the other batch, season with just salt. Allow the salt to dissolve for a couple of minutes in both batches, taste, and correct such that it tastes properly seasoned - again, you're looking for the food to taste good, not salty.
Do you see how friggin' clean the salt-only sauce tastes, versus the bitter angriness of the pepper-laced sauce? Can you now see how this preponderance of pepper, especially so when every item within a composed plate has been seasoned with salt AND pepper, from steak to potatoes to vegetables to sauce can lead to an overload of that bitter angriness as a whole?
Try cooking without pepper for a week, and see how your cooking becomes as light as a cloud. You won't regret it.
luv,
s
can u suggest a better spice/season for steak?
ReplyDeleteSpices that work well on steak run the gamut, it all depends on what's going with it. If it's standing on it's own, I just use salt, and lots of it - that's if it isn't getting some kind of jus or compound butter.
ReplyDeleteI rely less on spices and moreso on a good quality, well-marbled, thoroughly dry-aged cut of beef. All it needs is salt at that point.
I'm not completely against pepper, it just has it's time and place.
To actually ANSWER your question - if the meal has a Spanish flair, think cumin, smoked paprika and chilis. Asian? Marinate in soy, ginger, garlic and a touch of honey. Indian? (although, they don't eat much cow) Curry powders, garam masalas, a simple mix of cumin and coriander seed. Italian? Olive oil, lots of fresh herbs.
The sky's the limit, really - you just have to figure out the flavours that surround the steak (sides and sauces) in order to zero in on a set group of spices or seasonings.
ALWAYS salt your steaks heavily though. NEVER skimp on this.
And pepper and spice are AWESOME!
ReplyDelete