How do you like your steak cooked?

[SauRoNZA]

It's always going to be a combination of factors - I had a fascinating chat with a chef/owner of a Michelin star chef some years back about the perfect steak in all cuts and sizes - blew my mind how scientifically it can be approached.

Yup, it’s 100% scientific.

This cooking with feeling nonsense must stop.

It’s one reason I’m hating the reality show chef dramas more and more, because no real kitchen is going to operate without a thermometer and risk losing produce from people sending it back or cocking it up in the first place.

 

[Lupus]

Yup, it’s 100% scientific.

This cooking with feeling nonsense must stop.

It’s one reason I’m hating the reality show chef dramas more and more, because no real kitchen is going to operate without a thermometer and risk losing produce from people sending it back or cocking it up in the first place.

Cooking with feeling leads to poisoning... I've tried cooking with feeling ;-) sometimes it's a hit other times yeah it's the reason I've not cooked again for awhile

 

[SauRoNZA]

Cooking with feeling leads to poisoning... I've tried cooking with feeling ;-) sometimes it's a hit other times yeah it's the reason I've not cooked again for awhile

Precisely.

Also especially when cooking at home you are spending good money, why risk getting it wrong even if you are right most of the time.

Also good luck cooking something like a lamb rack with feeling.

 

[Lupus]

Precisely.

Also especially when cooking at home you are spending good money, why risk getting it wrong even if you are right most of the time.

Also good luck cooking something like a lamb rack with feeling.

And you guessed what I stuffed up :-( yesterday was a potjie bread

 

[quovadis]

Yup, it’s 100% scientific.

This cooking with feeling nonsense must stop.

It’s one reason I’m hating the reality show chef dramas more and more, because no real kitchen is going to operate without a thermometer and risk losing produce from people sending it back or cocking it up in the first place.

A few years back I was in Texas and thought I'd go try some steak. Basically all the cuts are standardized sizes and they run the cuts through a conveyor that cooks accordingly. It's dialed in and no skill involved. Had mixed feelings but its the USA - the steak was above average at least.

 

[SauRoNZA]

A few years back I was in Texas and thought I'd go try some steak. Basically all the cuts are standardized sizes and they run the cuts through a conveyor that cooks accordingly. It's dialed in and no skill involved. Had mixed feelings but its the USA - the steak was above average at least.

I mean that’s still supporting the fact that it’s all science based and nobody is guessing.

Same reason restaurants use sous vide, not because it’s better but rather because it makes everything very predictable.

 

[Lupus]

I mean that’s still supporting the fact that it’s all science based and nobody is guessing.

Same reason restaurants use sous vide, not because it’s better but rather because it makes everything very predictable.

 

[Zellephant]

My standing dad joke is that I only cook well done steak, because where I come from, Medium Rare is well done.

But in reality it does depend a lot on the cut, the age and the quality of the meat, but even then, steak should never be cooked beyond medium. If you do that, your ruining the meat. (Unless is cut under 1.5cm thick, and it’s from an old c grade cow…. Then it’s shiza nyama style - spice the hell out of it and cook it till it’s dead and starts curling up at the edges)

Medium is the way of the true connoisseur.

I've seen too many people sawing their way through the unrendered fat and cold, intact muscle fibers in a rare steak, and then gagging the thing down because some TV chef told them rare or blue is the way to go. The fat and muscle tissue only softens up at around medium.

Agreed, if it’s a high quality, well marbled rib eye or so. But even then, unless I know the chef and trust them, I will order it medium rare - because most restaurants overcook slightly, no matter what you ask for.

This is braai country, well done is the norm.

Que? Come again. How do you guys braai? Steak must be cut nice and thick, and flame grilled or cooked over seriously hot coals. 2 to 3 minutes a side - as soon as some juices start pooling on the top side, you flip it over. Then straight off the grill, slice into strips about 1cm thick, and salt…. Delicious, juicy medium rare to medium perfection.

Problem comes in when people have “bring and braais” and want to braai steak, chops, worse and chicken at the same time on the same coals. I hate a bring and braai.

But... those of us braaiers with some taste go for medium-well.

Nee, sies. Nothing over medium, ever. Unless it’s old cow, and very thinly sliced t-bones (basically beef chops), or blade steak - which isn’t really steak.

Blue is just stupid

Depends on the cut. Whenever I cook sirloin, rump of ribeye, I always eat the trimming/offcuts raw, with just a little salt or sometimes lemon juice.

Blue rare fillet is also the only way fillet is remotely edible (unless you go all the way to the other side of the spectrum, chop it into cubes and cook the hell out of it then drown it in sauce).

Yup, it’s 100% scientific.

This cooking with feeling nonsense must stop.

It’s one reason I’m hating the reality show chef dramas more and more, because no real kitchen is going to operate without a thermometer and risk losing produce from people sending it back or cocking it up in the first place.

I take it you have never been to Sicily or the south of France, or Portugal, or Greece, or anywhere where real people (not just celeb chefs) take food seriously.

I have learned things from Nonnas who have never even heard of a food thermometer.

Cooking is equal parts art and chemistry. If you stop cooking on feeling, you very quickly lose the artistry.

Cooking with feeling leads to poisoning... I've tried cooking with feeling ;-) sometimes it's a hit other times yeah it's the reason I've not cooked again for awhile

Stop overthinking it… let the ingredients take the lead and speak for themselves

 

[rustypup]

the steak was above average at least.

Def above average in price.

Worst so far was semi-decent steak in Seattle starting at USD80/100.... no steak is *that* good.

 

[Zellephant]

Also good luck cooking something like a lamb rack with feeling.

Once a month at least - sometimes in the oven, sometime in a Dutch oven over the coals, sometimes in the pizza oven slowly overnight with the leftover heat after a pizza night.

You’re doing it low and slow, so you will notice quickly enough if something is going wrong.

I mean that’s still supporting the fact that it’s all science based and nobody is guessing.

Same reason restaurants use sous vide, not because it’s better but rather because it makes everything very predictable.

Sous vide, outside of mass catering like hotel buffet style cooking, and some very specific fine dining applications has been out of fashion in the restaurant/cooking game since the late 2000s already. Especially for steakhouses, the in thing now is being able to select your own cut out of a butchers window, and have it prepared to your preference on demand. No way to “cheat” with sous vide there.

 

[N@t3]

People out there eating a$$ and they dont want to eat medium rare steak. Haai.

 

[rh1]

Sies! I don't eat other animals!

Some of us are more enlightened

One of the first naughty jokes I read, was in a porn magazine, where the husband is sad as the wife does not want to give him a bj, and she says "I told you I was a vegetarian before we got married".

 

[Marius De-Kock]

I take my steak blue.

 

[rh1]

I like my steaks lekker.

 

[rh1]

Medium to medium rare, but DO NOT put fuucking basting sauce on it! Who thinks that kak is nice?

Sauces is used for the old poor quality beef. It has its place. The problem is that some people dont know that quality steak taste better without the sauces.

 

[rustypup]

quality steak taste better without the sauces.

The one exception being bone marrow, of course

 

[Jean Claude Vaaldamme]

Medium rare is a Youtube influencer thing.
30 years ago you would rarely see someone ask for a medium rare steak.
Now to make YouTube videos you can only really make 3-5 videos on how to cook a steak, grill/fry/braai etc.

In steps the worst thing you can do to a steak. dry ageing or any ageing. Now you can make a thousand videos with different shyte you aged your steak with and different times.

But ageing a steak breaks down the collagen and proteins. And you end up with something tasting more like stewed beef than steak.
In step medium rare, the only way to get an aged steak texture still tasting remotely like a steak.

Now every Jan Rap en sy maat eat their Karan feedlot tuff steaks medium rare because the guy on YouTube said so.

 

[Brian_G]

How to live / dress / behave / eat braaied steak / etc. / etc. - a monologue proudly presented by @Zellephant

No thanks, you do you and I'll do me.

 

[Sepeng]

Can you imagine a MyBB braai and swaai? You bring your pre-packaged braai pack from Spar, maybe a Castle Lite 6 pack and a Johnnie Walker red label and Sprite mixer thinking you're the bees knees. Burn the hell out your meat, like it was damned.
Reckon you'd get attacked by 78 different folk.

 

[rustypup]

Medium rare is a Youtube influencer thing.

Whut?!

<Flashback>
Distinctly recall the father unit ordering medium rare when I was knee-high to a baboon in the bad old days where the internet wasn't even an LSD-fuelled nightmare.
</Flashback>