West Virginia dog!
Labrador Deceiver said:
I didn’t laugh because that wasn’t a joke. Jokes are actually funny.
ShibbOleth said:
“Popular” choice is a matter of degree. While it may be the least common choice you experienced, it is a signficantly popular choice that many people in this thread have mentioned it was omitted from the list.
BigT said:
I inserted the glaring hole where you omitted a choice. Brown on the outside, cooked through, no pink.
C K Dexter Haven said:
So if I said “anyone who thought that line was funny is an idiot”, that wouldn’t be a rules violation either, because I was referring to a class of people, and not a specific person who posted it?
Labrador Deceiver said:
People were interpreting that as “I don’t eat steak”, which is a valid entry to the question, if one wants the additional info.
It was just insulting and not funny.
AHunter3 said:
Thanks for pointing that out. A lot of backyard cooks don’t know about using two temps (I didn’t until very recently). So in order to cook through, they end up with a hockey puck.
Wow. I’ve been called “nerd,” “geek,” “crritic,” and “Rebel scum” before, but this really hurts.
I’ll eat it however it’s prepared, from barely cooked to grey on the inside. I tend to prefer medium rare to rare, though.
Reckon he’d rather walk it at that.
While I’ve got you here, tell me how to cook a steak well done on my $20.00 Wal Mart grill. Rare is easy. Ribs I close the lid and open it once in a while so that the charcoal stays lit, but well done without being burnt is difficult.
As I said above, rake the coals to one side. That side’s for searing/browning, the other’s for cooking. Start hot and end cool is the typical way of doing things, I do it the other way around: start cool and end hot. You can do well-done without burning quite easily that way.
Medium. I don’t actually mind how medium rare tastes, but the color is kind of off putting.
Thanks! I looked that up and it looks perfect. My mouth is watering. Next time I can budget a trip to a good steakhouse, I’ll give it a shot.
Barry Sonnenfeld was just on “Late Nite” and showed Dave a laminated picture of a what he considers the perfect steak. When waiters ask how he wants his steak cooked, he shows them the picture and asks them to describe it. If the say rare, he says he wants it rare. if they say medium, he says he wants it medium.
Yup - and if you’re working with a gas grill ($20 from Wal-Mart would suggest one of those small tailgating grills), you need to somehow divert the direct heat from about a third of the grate. Tin foil, drip pan, whatever. I’d probably use a steak-sized drip pan directly beneath.
Not always. I’ve heard lots of jokes that weren’t funny. If a joke bombs, it’s still a joke. Just a bad one.
Find yourself a new definition.
Good gad! Thanks for the advice. 
I like mine very rare. Is that called “blue”? I instruct them to just wave it over a candle a couple times.
Gotcha. You can grill on anything - but the thing you need to worry about is the fact that grills like that have the coals pretty close to the grate, and you’ll get a lot of flame up. That’s when raking coals to one side really pays off.
I really recommend getting a chimney starter ($13), and using lump coal whenever you can. (It is a little more expensive, but I think it’s a lot easier and cleaner to work with.) The only place I can find lump is usually the hardware store (ACE usually carries Cowboy brand).
I buy one every year with the cheap grill.
The Ace around here carries Big Green Egg brand, which is extremely good lump. If you can find a store in your area that carries it, I’d recommend picking up a bag.
I’m always interested in getting a good lump.
How I order steak varies by where I’m ordering it. The thicker the steak is apt to be, the more done I order it–a thicker steak has a much wider range of doneness from margin to center, and I order by how I want the middle. Also, I’ve noticed that the sort of places where you’re apt to have a really thick steak typically have a much rawer definition of the various stages of doneness so I have to order it more done to get it how I want it.
I want my steak seared on the outside, warm all the way through, and pink in the middle. The juices should be clear–the only food that should gush red gunk when you cut it is a jelly donut. Whatever you call that, that’s how I like my steak.
I’ll eat a fairly wide range on either side of that point, anywhere from a thin strip of red in the very center and dark pink juices to cooked nearly dry. I won’t enjoy it nearly as much, but I’ll eat it without making a fuss. Still, if you’re going to miss the mark, I’d really much prefer you miss it on the done side. Because if it’s rare enough, just looking at it on my plate is going to turn my stomach, much less trying to eat it. Then I have to send it back, or get up and go back into the kitchen/out to the grill, and cook it some more while everybody else is eating. It just makes for a generally uncomfortable situation for everybody involved, and I prefer to avoid it.
Oh no. Don’t do that. The TMI story I was told by a guy who once worked in The Embers involved fishing for the steak under a freezer with a broom handle.
If you are a card-carrying carnivorous connoisseur, there really is only one way to enjoy steak—Pittsburgh Rare. Charred on the outside; rare on the inside. If you haven’t tried it that way, do yourself a favor and order it that way next time you are at a fine steakhouse (most Chefs and wait staff are familiar with the term, in my experience). It’s significantly better than [del]sex[/del]… [del]single malt scotch[/del]…[del]authentic Cohiba cigars[/del]…uh…long walks on the beach with your spouse. If you’re a bit too timid to have it “black and blue”, Pittsburgh Medium-Rare is the next best thing.
I prefer it just about the tail end of medium, medium/medium well. Juicy and cooked through. I don’t have to compromise, unlike the bloodthirsty and hardtack eaters.