Yeah, I know. But the supermarket I bought it from usually doesn’t USE those drip pads, so I wasn’t looking for it. I didn’t find it until I took the steak off my Foreman Grill.
So the question is, is the meat still safe to eat? It’s a very thick cut of filet mignon, and I’d hate to have to toss it. It was on the grill about 10 minutes (because thick).
The worst that could happen is that you’d have bits of pad burned onto the outside, and they would taste bad and be hard to chew. It’s not like they’re going to make those things out of anything toxic.
Agreed.
Cut off the pad instead of pulling it off. I’d cut in a bit to make sure you get the cooked bits off. I’m not as certain as Chronos that the pad is good eats. I’m also pretty sure it tastes nasty. Re-grill the exposed meat if you want a seared edge.
Yeah, this seems fail-safe to me. Take a finely serrated knife (like a bread knife) and just barely slice off that bottom edge. You’re good to go.
Works for me. Sunny Daze, the pad peeled off the bottom of the steak when I picked it up off the grill and was left behind. The plastic melted a bit, so this time it stuck to the grill instead of the meat. I don’t think any of it got on the meat itself. To be on the safe side, though, I’ll cut a bit off the bottom. It’ll still be a nice hunk of beef.
Thanks, all.
Just because it’s something that isn’t toxic at room temperature doesn’t mean it doesn’t become toxic when heat is applied. A lot of plastics become pretty nasty when they break down. Hell, even potatoes become mildly toxic when heated the wrong way.
This thread reminds me of the Thanksgiving turkey our friend cooked with the bag of giblets still inside, only revealed when slicing thru the breast. We laughed and then cooked the un-stuffed turkey a bit more and were no worse for wear.
Note that there were two steaks on that grill. I ate the other one with no ill-effects, but it also wasn’t sitting on top of a stuck-on drip pad.
Just so the OP doesn’t feel alone, I made a similar mistake once with chicken thighs when making a broth. I just dumped the whole thing into the pot without paying any sort of attention to the fact there was a drip pad stuck on the bottom. That was definitely not salvageable.
Didn’t Marie Antoinette say something like, “The peasants have no meat? Let them eat the pads”?
Dennis
I’ve done this with butter. Slice a pat of butter off a stick, and then not realize there’s still wrapping on the butter before I throw it into the pan.