Recently we had a friend, who is a chef, come to the house to prepare a meal for us and to teach us how to prepare steaks. We had three different petite steaks prepared three different ways. One was reverse seared, one was sous vide and one was dry brined. On the dry brine, he told us to cover the steak with salt and allow it to sit for at least an hour before washing off and cooking. The salt will pull the moisture to the surface of the steak creating a juicy, flavorful steak with a caramelized outside. The salt worked well before and during the cooking process. He then told us it’s best not to use pepper until after you’ve cooked your steak. Whereas salt interacts well with the fire, pepper actually adopts a bitter taste that we’ve all become used to.
As I was reading Mark 9:49-50, I thought about this dinner. Jesus said, “Everyone will be purified by fire as a sacrifice is purified by salt. Salt is good; but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have the salt of friendship among yourselves, and live in peace with one another” (GNT). Every one of us will go through the fire in this life. Will we dry up and get burned during that time or will we become more flavorful? I love how The Message puts Jesus’ word of Matthew 5. It says, “Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.”
Our lives should be bring out God flavors in this world especially when we’re going through hard times. We shouldn’t be like those with pepper on them producing bitterness. Just like those steaks, it helps if we’re covered in salt before we go through the fire. We must continually be in prayer and in God’s Word so that when the fire comes, that’s what comes out of us. The world is going through a tough time right now. People are afraid, bitter and arguing. What better time for us to be salt and light than now? We have an opportunity like never before to bring out the God-flavors of the world. Let’s not squander it by being bitter. Let your salt be flavorful and leave a good taste in people’s mouth as you point them to God.
Photo by Edson Saldaña on Unsplash
Devotions by Chris Hendrix 
Interesting. I have always put salt and pepper on before grilling steak. Actually grilling some tonight so I may change up my method a bit.
Good post!
Let me know how it turns out.
Will do
How were those steaks?
Something came up last night so we moved them to later in the week. I will let you know though.
Plans changed and I did end up grilling the steaks Tuesday night. I put what I thought was way too much kosher salt on them about an hour before grilling, rinsed off the salt, patted them dry and grilled as normal adding fresh ground pepper right before they came off.
Still trying to perfect my technique but they turned out great.
That makes my mouth water! If you let them rest about 10 minutes after you cook them, they’ll be extra juicy.
I haven’t always done that but I started a few months ago and it does make a difference.
Excellent thoughts. We need to put on the salt BEFORE we go into the fire.
Thanks
Thanks a lot
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