Mostly has to do with additional searing on the outside, in my experience, and more dry on the inside. Well done would mean some serious char of significant thickness, in addition to no pink on the inside.
I don’t like any kind of tableside sauce on mine. I do appreciate a good thin marinade of selected spices brushed on before cooking, but, if not that, then just salt and pepper. Tastes too good as is to mess it up with sauces.
Michigan. Well done, with catsup! Oh go ahead and sneer, but you know that’s how you’d really prefer it if you weren’t afraid to be seen doing it.
To think some poor cow had to die so you could eat that…
Well done. And I’m from Virginia but I’m the only person I know around here who likes it that way.
In fact, I’ve traveled the country quite a bit, and I’ve had kitchens get nasty about me ordering well-done steak just about everywhere. They send out really horrid cuts, or crappy gristle-filled steaks. One place apparently dumped it int he coals because it came to the table with bits of burnt wood stuck to it.
Many just cooks consider themselves too good to “ruin” a piece of meat this way. So I pretty much order it Medium Well if I’m eating out. Occasionally they mess it up and I get what I really want.
Central Texas, medium-to-well-done.
Are you Trump?
Florida, medium well. I don’t get the allure of bland, rubbery undercooked meat.
Born and raised and educated in the Chicago region (aka NW Indiana), living now in Denver. A quality cut of steak needs only salt and pepper, although if served with butter-sautéed mushrooms on the side, I would be a-ok. It should be cooked on the rare side of medium rare.
Drat, now I want one immediately.
Preferably medium rare with lots of salt, pepper and garlic, but no sauces.
However, my mother was born and raised in Alabama, so I can and have eaten steak anywhere from rare (as long as it’s hot) to well-done, and I do mean well-done, just like mom used to make it.
Please, I’d much rather have you call me a cocksucking motherfucking asshole.
If that’s how HE eats it, I might consider changing.
I’ve cooked a steak Pittsburgh Rare for one guest and he loved it, while another person wanted medium-well. (Reminder to self: steak is a lousy idea for a dinner party)
Personally, I like a rediculously thick filet or NY strip cooked rare sous vide, then given fifteen to thirty seconds a side in a hot cast iron pan for a quick sear.
Medium rare, maybe rarer for good cuts.
HP sauce, mustard or grilled onions help – improving great steak and crappy steak alike.
Looks like you missed the story. It was here on the Dope a bit of a joke in the media for the last week.
Live in the DC area, and I like my steaks medium rare.
Medium. A little pink in the center. No sauce.
I DON’T want to see blood oozing out of it.
I live in Arkansas.
I live in Wisconsin, and I’m in the “rare side of medium-rare” camp also. At 99% of restaurants, I’ll order my steak rare to prevent my steak being overdone.
The only time I use steak sauce is on steak sandwiches (thin cut ribeye, on a crusty roll with caramelized onions, please)
Cincinnati area, rare side of medium rare, no sauces unless part of a dish at a restaurant, salt and pecker only please.
This is my answer, other than I grew up in NW suburbs and still live in Chicagoland.
Live in New England, but grew up in southern Michigan and northeastern Illinois. On the rare side of medium rare; no reaction from waiters. No sauce – salt, pepper, garlic, and maybe some melted butter.
Friends of mine visited France in the late '80s. He had no problems ordering, but she was having trouble getting the waiter to understand that she wanted her steak rare. Finally she pointed at the table in front of her, said “Steak,” jabbed at the table with her fork, and said “Moooo!” Waiter nodded, and headed off toward the kitchen. When he came back he turned out to be one of those waiters who announce what they are giving you as they set your plate on the table (which I suppose does help make sure you’re getting what you wanted). So he set her plate in front of her with a flourish and announced, “Steak moo.”