I’ve actually never eaten a fully raw *meat[/] dish (not from aversion, it’s simply never come up), but yeah, before vegetarianism I did like sashimi. Raw tuna is one of the yummiest foods.
But my SO likes rare meat, and I simply can’t imagine her willingly ingesting raw fish.
Yeup. This is exactly what I was going to say. There are a few really good places, though, where rare means rare. In those cases, I will order properly.
Absolutely. If I buy a good cut of steak, I cut raw slices for myself to nosh on while I’m prepping dinner. I’ve made steak tartare for myself twice last week (raw egg, too.)
The idea that a more done steak can be more tender than a raw one is strange to me, at least with a good cut of meat–the type you would get at a decent steakhouse. With poorer grades of meat, though, I have had issues–especially with sirloin. Poorly marbled meat (we’re talking select grade or the lower marbling cutoff for choice) can get pretty rubbery and difficult to chew at lower levels of doneness. This kind of meat does feel better to me, texturewise, when heavily marinated and cooked to medium to medium-well. A good cut of steak–like a dry-aged choice, a choice filet, or anything prime–goes in the opposite direction for me. As you go up in doneness, the tenderness goes down. I mean, medium to medium well is already getting to the point where the proteins (or whatever it is) seize up and the texture changes from a buttery, velvety mouthfeel to something more firm and grainy. A raw slice of, say, a 21-day dry aged ribeye has a similar texture and softness to me as a slice off a refrigerated stick of butter.
However I tend to like my steaks medium rare, as that gives me a variety of textures and flavors: you have your nicely seared outside, and your tender, buttery, velvety, but warm, inside.
I am somebody who knows how to cook steak right, and the fact remains that even if it’s done skillfully, cooking steak well (i.e overcooking, no matter what you say) destroys the elements which separate a good cut from a bad cut.
My mother likes her steaks well-done, so that’s how we boys make it for her. My brother tend to like his steaks also at the more done levels of doneness, and he’s come up with a marinade that works really well: the steak is juicy, flavorful, bursting with flavor, and tender in parts (the filet part of the porterhouse practically falls apart; the other part has a bit of give, but is not rubbery or anything.) It is perfectly edible, and I’m fine with it, especially with the average cuts of beef you get from Jewel or Dominick’s (two local grocery chains.)
However, the marinade and cooking method do cover up the beefy flavors of a simply great piece of beef, and the way many marinades affect the texture of the beef, they make it a bit mushy. When I’m spending $30-40/pound that one or two days a year I buy really good meat for myself, (we’re talking at a butcher, not a restaurant) I want to taste that beef and nothing else. Those juices, that have so much of that beefy flavor I (and many others in this thread) crave, get cooked and the flavor changes in the process. Also, the texture of a buttery soft piece of great beef gets lost as it’s cooked longer. I certainly don’t find it “more tender” than a rarer cut.
Medium rare, since that’s the Steingarten prefers it and I’m a big fan.
But if I’m cooking for myself, it’s always rare or bloody – not much patience.
The exception, one of my favorite things if I’m hungry for meat, is to get a big chuck roast, and cook it black and blue --sliced thin.
I chose medium rare, but in restaurants I often ask for medium, because it’ll be brought to me medium rare. If I order medium rare in some places, it comes raw.
Really, though, I’m not going to complain if you do it a little differently. It’s steak. I love it.
This is what I like, even though I didn’t learn it was called Pittsburgh rare until a few years ago.
I worked in a nice kitchen once, and the chef would cringe whenever someone ordered something really expensive cooked well-done. If you’re going to leatherize the fuck out it, order something cheap, fer cryin’ out loud!
Basically this.
I prefer mine well done too. No pink! I feel bad for people who just can’t accept that some people like different things and that it isn’t an indication of the class level of your palate to like well done steak. I would never tell someone who ate their steak rare that they were being disgusting and I would hope that they would offer me the same courtesy.
Let me assure you, none of that is even remotely true.
For the millionth time on this board, there is no blood in a steak.
And your definition of medium rare is not correct, at all. Medium rare is typically a warm red center.
This cuts both ways. Look at the number of people here who have said that cooking meat is natural, that meat should be cooked, etc. In prior threads, people have made the accusation that those of us who like rare steaks are doing it to be poseurs, and no one could really like that.
Now, you want to eat meat that way - have at it. If you come to my house for a BBQ, I may have you cook it yourself, because I don’t know what you mean by well done, and I don’t want to destroy it. And even if I am doing the grilling, it is likely you will get a different type of meat. I won’t be getting the $35 a lb rib eyes from the local butcher for that, but rather the supermarket regular beef. Not only because it’ll be cheaper (and I will probably be marinading your steak to maintain a degree of moistness in it) but also it is likely to be a thinner cut, so easier to cook through without burning the outside to buggery.
As I said, I have no problem with someone having a steak well done. That doesn’t mean I don’t view it as an indication of the class level of the person’s palate (when it comes to steak). Similarly I have no problem with getting a bottle of white zindfandel in when a person comes over for a BBQ if that is what they like. I won’t drink it though.
Medium rare has a significant band of red. “Pink in the middle and no blood” is medium, not medium rare.
A word of warning - if you ever go to France, don’t eat steak.
I get what you are saying with everything except for this bit. I find a noticable difference between an expensive cut of beef and a cheap cut of beef when cooked completely well done. It is a different flavor and texture than you personally like but the quality is still there and if you feel like it would be burned the better choice would be to butterfly the cut to reduce thickness. I can’t imagine inviting someone over for a BBQ and serving everyone but one or two people $35 steaks and instead providing them with $4 steaks any more than I’d invite someone to a party that wasn’t a drinker and just point them towards the tap if they didn’t want to have a glass of shiraz.
The key to this is to cook the steak on the slow side of the grill, then finish hot for the sear. I cook all my steaks using the reverse method (start slow, 250F or so, finish hot), because it promotes a much more even cooking and seems (to me, at any rate) to retain more moisture that way. I know Cooks Illustrated did a test with a large roast, one cooked at 250F to medium rare, and another cooked at 400F to an internal medium rare, and the liquid lost in the high heat method was much more than in the slow heat method. I assume, but don’t know for sure, that the same applies for a cut of steak. In my experience, it seems to be true. On the other hand, I find high heat chicken (450 for 55 minutes) seems to yield a juicier and better product than slow cooked versions, so who knows? I guess I should just try both methods simultaneously next time for comparison.
The other thing I like about the slow-to-high method is that it dries the outside and promotes a better sear and caramelization. A medium rare steak for me usually takes 20 minutes at about 250-275F, and then two minutes a side over very high heat (whether I do it on a cast iron or a grill.) I strongly encourage steak lovers to give this method a shot. It is the reverse of the classical method, but once I tried it, I became a convert. I even do this for raw sausages like uncooked bratwursts and things of that nature. You get a much juicier sausage this way.
Maybe this has something to do with my color-blindness; it could be pinkish in the middle, I don’t know.
I would describe it as more about mouth-feel than color. Medium steak has the consistency of cooked meat as I bite into it, and is evenly tender. Anything rarer and I can feel the “rawness” on my tongue, a sensation which I do not enjoy.
Not sure if I’m explaining myself very well. But I always order medium and I usually like what I get, so that’s good enough for me. 
To be fair, it did take until halfway through the second page for that myth to come out. We’ve gotten better! (It’s still taking longer than we thought…)
I know exactly what you’re talking about. That to me is the line between medium and medium-rare. Medium-rare is red/pink and warm on the inside, but still has that soft, velvety texture I was talking about upthread. When it hits medium, it’s pink inside, but a cooked pink, where the texture has changed from that fleshy feel to a cooked texture.
