‘Tis the reason NOT to season

‘Tis the reason NOT to season

I recently wrote about the advantages and simplicity of bulk browning here. But, what I didn’t discuss is exactly how to brown the meat. I would imagine there are two “browning camps”.
~Camp 1 seasons the meat DURING the browning process.
~Camp 2 seasons the meat AFTER the browning process.
Where do you most often camp? Does it even matter?
Let me end the mystery quickly – it matters. Why? Because I said so — hahaha just kidding, I couldn’t help myself! Being a mom of four has had a lasting effect on me.
Now, really why? When you pre-season your meat, 4 things can go wrong – and most likely nothing can go right.
1st: It’s very easy to over season, in particular over salt, when pre-seasoning. Because it’s raw you can’t taste and so really what you are doing is “blind” seasoning.
2nd: Pre-seasoning limits you to using the cooked meat for a very narrow flavor profile of recipes.
3rd: Most of the seasoning used during the browning process is discarded when you drain off the excess fat. Then you re-season your meat which most likely results an over-salted end product.
4th: Pre-seasoning dries out the meat and leaves you with a tough-textured browned jerky-like meat. And “ain’t nobody got time for that!”
I think examining some of these basic habits in our everyday cooking are very important in ensuring our home cooking is the best it can be. We will talk about other cooking habits as they pop to mind. But if you have any questions, habits, problems or ideas – please leave a comment on this post. You just may be able to help someone else or get a little help with a kitchen issue.
So now that we have cleared that up, go forth and brown.