When I graduated from college and actually had money to go out for dinners, I immediately joined the land of the food snobs and ordered rare steaks. I’ve come to believe that medium rare is the better choice and works well for just about any steak. Outside of filet mignon, steaks need to be medium rare to truly enjoy them.
Agree or tell me why I’m crazy? Let’s assume good restaurants, when you know you’re spending some decent money for food.
I once worked with a rather pale, very petite graphic artist who startled us one day by announcing she wanted a big steak. When we said she didn’t look like the carnivore type, she said “I grew up in St. Joseph, Missouri right by the stockyards. Just stun it, slice it, sear it and slap it on a platter!”
Indeed. I believe we’ve been through this many times before–there’s even objective quantified measurements of tenderness that show this to be the case. There are some cuts that benefit from low, slow cooking. Those are the cuts with a high degree of collagen/connective tissue in them. In that case, you are cooking the meat so the collagen renders (or whatever the correct word is) into gelatin, and then coats the meat and loosens it up to make it tender. These are cuts like chuck, brisket, shank, ribs. Traditional steak cuts like strip and filet, for instance, get tougher the longer they are cooked, as they are not high in collagen. Now whether you like them rare or well, that’s your personal taste. I don’t particularly care and I’ll cook it how you like it.
ETA: On the other hand, if you’re buying shit steak, like select grade or lower (yes, my supermarket even has “utility” grade on sale sometimes), then you’re probably better off cooking it to higher temps. I find those steaks tend to be chewy at lower levels of doneness. A good choice or prime steak like strip or ribeye or fillet should be edible raw, and not chewy. And, yes, I will often slice off a couple of pieces for myself before throwing it on the grill.
If you overdo the tuna steak by a minute, maybe less, you might as well put it in mayo and use it as really expensive tuna salad, or a hockey puck. I’ve done the former. It was good
My Dad asked for medium-rare in a hotel in New Calidonia. When he sent it back to the kitchen to be cooked some more they stopped, had a second thought, and asked “Do you mean American medium-rare or Australian medium-rare?”
I like my brown on the outside and pink in the middle. I’ll take bleu in the middle, but it always worries me a little.
The reason we cook meat in the first place is because raw meat is tough. I’ve had well-done steaks that were so tender they were falling apart on the fork. I’ve never seen rare meat that tender, not even for inherently tender cuts like filet mignon.
Aged beef is damn good RARE. Of course good aged beef is rare in the first place
I need to find my old posts here about 4 years ago about tenderizing beef by burying it in rock salt for awhile. That is the most tender beef I’ve had besides aged beef (and its easy to get/make).
I’ve never been a fan of medium-rare myself - the texture of cool raw beef sets off my gag reflex, and even though I understand that a steak isn’t like a hamburger and there’s very little health risk from eating a steak that isn’t cooked through as long as the outside has been thoroughly heated, my gut keeps insisting that pink = bad. I can order a quality steak medium if I have confidence that the inside will at least be warm, but otherwise I go medium well.
Also, seconding the above notion that carne asada simply must be cooked to well-done. You want it charred, cooked through, and a little on the chewy side.