FOOD NEWS
Think Twice Before You Sear Meat With Freshly Cracked Pepper
By C.A. Pinkham
During the winter, we have to resort to searing our meat on pans instead of grills. It’ll still yield delicious results, but we might have to rethink using freshly cracked pepper.
A hard sear is essential to a pan-cooked steak with a nice, crispy crust, but the high
heat of this cooking method
makes freshly cracked peppers susceptible to becoming bitter.
The other issue is that if the cracked peppercorn pieces are too big (especially if you get them on cheaper grinders) they could cause gaps in the sear itself.
This, however, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use freshly cracked pepper. To eliminate the gaps in your sear, you just have to invest in a slightly pricier pepper grinder.
As for the bitterness in taste, it comes down to how much you use and for a lot of people around the globe, that bitterness is a positive. It’s a matter of personal taste.