So how does that explain why well done steaks are tough even when I make them at home? I’m using the exact same steaks, exact same techniques, yet they are quite obviously less tender. Face it, irreversable chemical and physical changes happen between 55C and 70C. Theres no way around that.
Bullshit. If someone has TRIED it medium rare, and found that they didn’t like it, they’re not ignorant and they only thing they’re “depriving” themselves of something they didn’t like in the first place.
:rolleyes:
Now me, I like mine medium rare. Not too rare-I don’t like a cold steak. But grilled with the outside seered, and the inside nice and pink and juicy.
People like what they like. To eat something you just plain DON’T LIKE just to impress others and not waste your money is just being a pretentious rube.
The definitions for rare to well down seem to vary wildly from city to city and from person to person. Some people regard a tiny sliver of pink as medium rare, others regard it as well done. However, the generally accepted standards are that 65C is the midpoint of medium-rare and 80C is well done.
There are no known pathogens that can inhabit the interior of cow tissue. since the outside of the meat is brought to well above 160F, the inside could still be at room temperature and it would still be perfectly safe to eat. It’s only with ground meats that the entire thing must be brought up to 160F all the way through.
If you don’t want to ruin a perfectly good hamburger by cooking it past medium, then get your butcher to grind the mince from a single steak. Sure, theres still a tiny chance of getting food poisoning, but the chances of a single steak being bad is a lot less than the chances of 1000 scraps of meat mixed together being bad.
I just find the whole idea of taking a beautiful cut of fine, well-aged beef, and actually cooking it to be tragic. I’m not offended in a food-snooby sort of way. It just makes me depressed to even think about it. I really can’t afford to eat meat that good on a regular basis, and knowing people are out there ruining such a fine delicacy just hurts.
It’s your meat. Do what you want with it. But for pity’s sake, don’t broadcast “well done” to the teeming millions! The cruelty!
Your misunderstanding the point. Say we got two pieces of beef, one prime and one select and cooked them both to medium rare. The difference between the two pieces is obvious and we can always pick which is which. Say we got the same two pieces and cooked them to well-done. The differences would be much less pronounced and you would have a hard time justifying the cost of prime beef over select.
Can I interject a point here…
The argument that if you like something and pay for it no one can tell you it’s “unsophisticated” is bunk. If that were true nothing would be unsophisticated. And after buying, eating, and enjoying fried Oreos I can attest that’s not the case.
Well, I don’t say anything, but I sure think that someone who orders well done steak is unsophisticated. I spent my growing up years getting all my meat well done because my parents were biologists worried about pathogens. When I was about 18 an uncle was aghast that I was going to order a steak well done and convinced me to try medium rare. I don’t know how he managed this as I’m rather stubborn (gee whatta surprise), but I did. I’ve never ordered beef more than medium rare since. And I will eat carpaccio.
Over the next 20 years when dear old mom was cooking a steak, I’d request that mine not be quite so well done and she eventually explained to me that the well done obsession was my father’s, that my grandfather (whom I look just like and that’s why I’m mom’s favorite) liked his rare. Well, recently, there has been a shift in the old folk’s eating habits. They now have their steaks medium well. Gaack.
Once again, the SDMB serves its purpose: I have gained an understanding of the timeless steak debate (which undoubtedly has raged since our ancestors first harnessed fire). I have finally learned why well-done steaks are frowned upon, and I agree that insisting upon a well-done steak is not consistent with the ritual we call dining. However, the practice of “keeping for well-done” is, in my opinion, unprofessional of a chef. A professional chef has the duty to provide his patrons with the best food he can; if he can’t prepare a delicious and tender cut of beef* that is cooked through, he’d better learn how. Yes, a restaurant is a business, and using good meat for well-done orders may seem wasteful, but that isn’t the point. Do you want to run a decent restaurant that turns a great profit, or a great restaurant that turns a decent profit?
Regardless, the attitude that well-done means a lack of sophistication can be taken to an extreme.
Yeah, that’s real classy :rolleyes: (I don’t mean to pick on you, Broomstick, but I’m trying to make a point). Yes, eating a nearly raw, bloody (or at least quasi-bloody) hunk of meat can be carnally gratifying, but it has very little if anything to do with a sophisticated palate. Acknowledging that one’s food was once a living being detracts from the dining experience, and is arguably more uncouth than overcooking a fine cut of meat. If you want your steak bloody and barely seared, ask for it blue rare; DO NOT say “Aw, hell, just knock its horns off, wipe its ass, and throw it on the plate!”.
I have historically been a medium to medium-well man. This thread has inspired me to actively experiment with steaks done medium rare and rare. Blue rare if I like rare.
*Not necessarily a “steak” in the strictest sense; I’ll allow for plenty of leeway in terms of preparation, seasoning, and garnishing.
It maybe be unsophistocated, sure. But it’s not “ignorant”, as some have asserted, if the person has tried it the other way and didn’t like it.
I know all that, but I still want my steak heated through. I no more want to eat a room temperature steak than I want to eat a steak that’s been left raw on the counter all day, and then had its surface heated to 160F.
Someday before I die (preferably not right before I die, if you know what I mean) I’d like to try Fugu puffer fish. But I still like my cow cooked.
Is this someone who is new to eating?
And at the other end of the spectrum, I like mine so rare, a good vet could still revive it. 
That said, if you’re paying for the damn thing, you’re entitled to have it cooked any way you please.
There is a certain amount of snobbery attached to only eating rare and medium steaks, but hey, to each his own. You want yours well-done, that’s fine.
Why?
If the difference can not be tasted in the well done steak it sems like a perfectly acceptable practice to me.
The same thing is done with other foodstuffs like flavored coffee. One you add “pecan pie” essence to a coffee bean there is no reason to use specialty grade coffee because it’s “wasted” on that consumer. The most demanding consumers at the high end that are not buying flavored coffee anyway so everybody is happy.
The well-done customer will never taste the difference between the better cuts and the lesser ones but the rare-med customer might (and is more likely to fall in this prep category) so where is the harm? Everybody wins with “keeping for well done” because their expectations are met.
I doubt a steak house has superb cuts on one hand and total garbage they are feeding to well done customers, the chef is just using his best picks for his best preparations and his second best picks in a place where whatever faults he/she thinks detract from the best cuts will never be noticed anyway.
I say this is very reasonable.
Well, I have finally found two reasons to become a vegetarian:
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Pretentious asshole chefs will give me a piece-of-crap cut of meat because I happen to prefer it well done; and,
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Pretentious asshole food snobs will accuse me of being a knuckle-dragging moron because our tastes in food differ slightly.
Jebus, I never cease to marvel that nothing is too unimportant that some of you can’t manage to get on your high horses and fling insults about! (Guin, you and I can go out and eat, and pointedly not comment on each other’s choices)
Because that’s what the customer ordered and paid for. It should not matter what I want done to the steak. If I paid for your best cut of meat and I wanted it burnt to a crisp, that’s what I expect you to serve me. If you want to put restrictions on how you prepare certain cuts of meat, you’d damned well better put it on the menu.
What if I ordered it medium-rare and then drowned it in ketchup? Are you going to through me out?
That would be my point exactly, Mr. Blue Sky! John F, if I pay the same for a steak well-done as the person who wants it bovine-body-temperature, I expect the same cut of meat as the person who wants it rare. To give me an inferior cut of meat because of some overblown sense of sophistication when I’m paying the same is fraud. If both the rare-done person and I are paying $15.00 for that steak, I better be-DAMN be starting out with a $15.00 cut of steak, and not some $8.00 lay-by, or else I’m being bilked for the extra $7. Doesn’t matter one iota whether I can taste the difference or not.
I think we need a chef to chime in but I’m of the opinion these will all be the same “designated” cuts choice, prime or whatever regardless of the chosen prep but the chef is making further distinctions within that grade on what steak to use for what prep.
It would be very unethical to “bait and switch” where you are paying the same price as I am but once the order goes back for well done you get a lower grade steak than you ordered off the menu.
It has nothing to do with being a pretentious asshole, and everything to do with being a good businessman. This is sound inventory management and nothing more.
A prime steak cooked to well done, as noted, has had all the elements that make it a prime steak cooked out of it. It has, for all intents and purposes, become a subprime steak. The customer cannot tell the difference. This isn’t a matter of taste – it’s a matter of chemistry.
Contrast to a prime steak cooked medium rare, which has retained those properties which cause a steak to be labeled “prime.”
Now, you’re a restauranteur. You are down to the last two steaks in your fridge, for your last two customers of the night (more steak to be delivered in the morning). You have to decide how those steaks are parceled out. Do you give your best cuts to the customer ordering well-done, knowing that he won’t be able to tell the difference between that cut and a lesser one – in the process using a cut that could have been given to a customer ordering medium-rare, who will be able to tell the difference? Or do you give the lesser cut to the well-done order, knowing he won’t know, and give the better cut to the medium-rare order, knowing that he will?
Which approach do you think will better preserve the restauranteur’s reputation for providing a fine steak dinner?
If I order and pay for your best cut and you give me anything less, that’s what you’ve done, regardless of how it’s prepared.
It’s totally unacceptable.
I don’t think it’s about being a pretentious asshole, I just think it’s making the best and most economical use of the meats you have available. Like I said, I wouldn’t cook sushi grade tuna that I paid $15-$25/lb for to well done. A $5/lb tuna will do just as well, and nobody will tell the difference. If I try passing off $5/lb tuna as sushi, well, it will be pretty obvious.
I think it’s a matter of economics. That sub-par cut of steak sitting there is losing me money if I don’t serve it. Might as well give it to somebody ordering a well done steak, who can’t tell the difference, to throwing it in the garbage.