Genius salt crusted beef tenderloin - does the cloth choice matter?

I can't get the "ask a question about this recipe" link to work on my iPad so here it is manually. We made Steven Raichlebs salt crusted tenderloin last night (http://www.food52.com/recipes...) on the gas grill. We used a really nice dish towel designed for drying glasses without leaving lint - only because this one was the most stained and thus chosen for the sacrifice. We used a larger piece of beef 2-3 pounds and after 9 minutes on a super hot grill - the dish towel was basically glued to the grill grate. We gave it five more minutes and it was still totally stuck. To flip it, we had to rip through the cloth and lost our top salt crust. The end result was still amazing but it was a harrowing process and not beautiful. Any thoughts on why our towel might have stuck and a way around it in the future? Thanks!

meganvt01
  • 2868 views
  • 4 Comments

4 Comments

Author Comment
A Whole Foods Market Customer
A Whole Foods Market Customer September 17, 2012
100% cotton will burn, but will not melt or stick to the grate. If it melted on, it's not 100% cotton; your merchant lied to you.
 
meganvt01
meganvt01 September 17, 2012
They are 100% cotton cloths - but they do have a very thick weave.
 
Kristen M.
Kristen M. September 17, 2012
Interesting -- I never had that problem with the towels I used, but what the Whole Foods Market Customer is saying makes sense. Sorry you had to deal with cleaning that up. It is amazing how resilient the beef is in this method -- the time I tried using cheese cloth, much of the cloth burned off and some of the crust crumbled away, but the beef still turned out perfect.
 
Author Comment
A Whole Foods Market Customer
A Whole Foods Market Customer September 17, 2012
Your towel was not cotton. It had a synthetic fiber in it somewhere.
 
Recommended by Food52

Popular on Food52