I’m currently a waiter. When customers get picky with me about how they want their meat/eggs, it is up to me to decide how our kitchen usually sends out those requests. I happen to have the service of one of the finest breakfast cooks ever. If I send in an egg for over easy, by god, it is over easy. I have absolute confidence in him sending out exactly what I ordered.
People typically don’t get picky because they want to, they do it because kitchens and cooks are different. Some aren’t as particular. I’ve always ordered Medium Rare, more rare than medium, because I have, of course, gotten steaks cooked from medium rare to well done.
Hats off to people in every job who have pride in what they do.
Just wanted to say that this is the most descriptive posts I’ve seen in ages, and also one of the funniest.
I’m a steak ignoramus. I used to get them medium well because that’s what Dad did. I moved up to medium in the last couple of years. Doubt I’ll try rare - I don’t trust beef.
Most of us have no clue that there are so many options on a simple steak. And I, for one, am a little intimidated when ordering in a fancy restaurant. I don’t want something I can’t eat and I don’t want fight with the waiter so I tend to go with the basics - rare or medium - as I suspect most folks do.
I once went out for steaks with my in-laws and family. Father-in-law likes his steak to be cooked until usable as shoe-leather, a state he calls “rare” in spite of being corrected many times. So my son, about 9 at the time, has to decide how he wants his steak so he goes with how Grandpa likes his: “rare.” Both of them had to send it back for additional cooking. I swear, it would have been funny except that apparently Grandpa goes though the same process every time he has a steak. He just can’t figure out why every single restaurant can’t cook a steak the way he wants.
Kangaroo meat is available in a few U.S. supermarkets, at least ones with an exotic meat section but it certainly isn’t common. If you really want to try it, you can order it online from websites that specialize in exotic meats. Here is one example:
Also, addressing some other concerns about the safety of rare steaks: It doesn’t have the same problems as rare ground meat. Ground meat is handled and handled and handled, and during this processing it can become contaminated. Steak? Not so much.
As my executive chef corrected me not long ago (though talking about prime rib), “It’s not blood, it’s juice.”
To be more specific, any contamination is naturally only going to be on the outside of a piece of meat, so when you cook a steak you kill all those germs on the outside. The process of making ground beef (or sausage) takes the contaminated outside and mixes it all up through the whole bulk of the meat, so that it’s on the inside as well, and that’s why ground meat needs to be cooked well done.
You shouldn’t be. Whenever my GF and I go out for steak in NYC, the waiters are always helpfull answering any questions or making recommendations about cut, temperature, wine selection or anything else you might ask.
I actually learned that it is not blood right here on this board. It took me a long time to convince my husband, who I think actually got a kick out of thinking he was eating bloody meat.
ETA: A bit of googling is telling me there is at least a tiny bit of blood, though. Don’t know how reputable the cites are, so I’m not even gonna bother linking.
I like it when I can soak my fries in a solution that is primarily water with a little bit of myoglobin. It tastes good and it is a perk of having a steak that is not done through.
Here is a pretty good set of pictures. Do we all basically agree on those
Although actually I usually cook medium rare better than that. That’s a lot of brown for medium rare, you usually aim for a sear with half pink and half red.
I had no idea that rare was rare as what is shown on that chart in wolfman’s link. I don’t eat steak at all, but when I cook my husband’s what he calls ‘rare’, it is definetly medium rare.
And when I make my daughter’s what we call medium rare, it is actually medium.
This must be a generational thing. My grandfather and one of my uncles, when they were both alive, also used to ask for their steaks rare when they really meant well done, and no amount of explanation would get them to change their view on it. I thought I was the only one who’d experienced that bit of weirdness.
I’m also one of those shoe leather eaters someone mentioned earlier upthread, or I was. I simply couldn’t imagine eating a steak in any way other than well done and had mine cooked that way for years and years. Well, one day, I was at a catered client function and didn’t have the option of requesting a specific doneness (if that’s a word) and was delivered a medium rare filet mignon. Like a good little soldier, I sliced into the meat, hiding my revulsion at the sight of the pink center, and put it in my mouth…and my world exploded.
I can’t adequately describe it, but it was like I’d never really tasted meat before taking that bite. The flavor engulfed me, and the succulence was all but intoxicating. This was a dinner meeting, but after that first bite the voice of the speaker simply faded into the background as all my concentration centered on what was on my plate. I coudn’t tell you what the heck he was droning on about, and I didn’t care. I just wanted more of that exquisitely cooked filet in my mouth. I was actually staring down at my plate in rapt wonder, like an idiot. I haven’t had a well done piece of meat since.
Last two steaks I have had in a restaurant setting, some months ago, I ordered them ‘medium’. They both came out ‘medium rare’, which for my preferences is much too pink and texturally off-putting. I didn’t send them back, I endured and ate them… but I would have prefered that extra minute or two on the grill. Sorry, still don’t see the appeal of eating undercooked meat… I will always prefer mine medium and higher.
These words mean specific things, and that’s standard across the restaurant industry. Any decent chef knows what they mean. They don’t have to be mind readers to know what “medium” means any more than you have to be a mind reader to know what “steak” is. (Wolfman’s link is a good reference.)
Describing how you like it isn’t a bad idea if you’re not sure of the quality of the restaurant, but asking them how they would define doneness is just silly.
BTW, the uberboss is taking us to a very nice steakhouse this evening. I will order medium rare as per usual. I will report back.
I think that this is the reason so many steak affianodo’s scoff at people that like their steak well done. It isn’t so much that they don’t think their tastes are worthy. It’s that in most of our experiences, people that prefer their steak well done, done actually like steak all that much.
A quality rare steak is pure extacy to me. I can’t tell you the number of people that will disagree with me then say that they only like their steak well done.
That’s a lot of brown for medium rare, you usually aim for a sear with half pink and half red.