We’ve all experienced the shame of trying to sear only to produce a piece of meat that was overcooked in the middle and colorless on the surface, looking less like dinner and more like a pile of wet beige. But it’s okay. That’s all in the past, and we have to start healing.
First, it’s important to understand why this happened. If your pan was adequately heated (the oil in the pan was shimmering with tiny wisps of smoke coming off of it, right?), and you didn’t overcrowd the pan (adding too much at once will cool the pan down), then odds are, the culprit is too much moisture on the surface of the meat. Even a few extra drops of liquid can completely sabotage that $15 cut of meat you lovingly picked out at the market.
Ideally, when we put a piece of meat in a hot pan, it should start to undergo the Maillard reaction very quickly. This is the process responsible for the tasty brown crust that appears on a well-seared pork chop or juicy chicken thigh, and it begins once the surface of the meat hits temperatures ranging from 280° to 330° Fahrenheit. This is where the temperature of your skillet comes into play.
I spoke with Dr. Stuart Farrimond, author of The Science of Cooking and food science presenter for the BBC, about the Maillard reaction and the ideal conditions for achieving it. He tells me that “an ideal pan temperature will be well above 280° Fahrenheit before putting in the meat to compensate for the cooling effect the meat will have when it lands in the pan.” The higher the temperature of your pan, the faster the surface moisture on your meat will evaporate, but it’s best to remove that moisture as a factor altogether. In fact, this is why many cooks are leaning into dry-brining their meat (salting a few hours or even a day ahead of time, then leaving uncovered in the fridge until it’s time to cook), a helpful tip for preparing your holiday turkey.
The trouble with surface moisture on meat is that it works against you and the Maillard reaction. Water can only reach a maximum temperature of 212° Fahrenheit , well below the 280° Fahrenheit required for browning. “The aim is to get the meat above 280°F as soon as possible so the Maillard reaction can commence,” Farrimond tells me. Until the water is completely evaporated, the meat will cook, but it won’t brown. “Heat transfers through water fairly well (hence why foods cook quickly when in boiling water),” Farrimond adds. So while the internal temperature rises, energy is still being wasted evaporating surface moisture rather than “imbuing the meat with meaty flavors and a brown crispy coat.”
The easiest way to get rid of surface moisture is to simply pat your meat dry with paper towels before you cook it. And this is true for any cooking method, not just pan-searing. “Regardless of how the meat is being heated (e.g. by direct contact as in frying and searing, via air in an oven, or by heat radiating up from a grill or down from a top broiler), the less moisture that there is on the surface, the sooner the Maillard reaction can begin,” Farrimond tells me.
One of our most popular recipes of all time is Thomas Keller’s Simple Roast Chicken, prized for the crispy skin that develops over the roasting process. A key step? Patting the skin dry before seasoning and roasting. As Keller writes in the recipe, “The less it steams, the drier the heat, the better.”
You might be wondering, “What about meat that’s been marinated? Don’t you want that flavor lingering on the surface?” Though you might think that excess marinade equates to extra flavor, odds are, you’re going to end up with something coated in burnt marinade or a slab of steamed meat, so you do want to gently dab away excess moisture.
The marinade is still worthwhile, though, especially for thin cuts of meat. As Farrimond explains, a marinade will rarely penetrate beyond 1/8-inch below the surface, no matter how long you marinate for. But that’ll get you pretty far with a thin pork cutlet, or the boneless thighs in my recipe for chicken fajitas, where the chicken is soaked in a blend of citrus juices, spices, and aromatics before it’s dried carefully, then seared to a deep golden brown.
If you’re keen on having a saucy final product, reserve some of the marinade before it ever touches the meat, and use it as a finishing sauce like in this grilled chicken recipe. Or simply layer the flavor by incorporating one or two elements from the marinade into the final presentation—a squeeze of fresh lime juice and sprinkling of chopped cilantro over your fajitas echoes those flavors in the marinade while adding a burst of freshness after the chicken is cooked.
