Why do some people like steaks cooked more on the rare side than the done side?

[devilsknew]

It’s a hypothesis, truly I have no means to back up the theory. But I bet a study is in order. It seems like common sense, otherwise.

[dnooman]

[QUOTE=devilsknew]
Yea, well shit in one hand and wish in the other.
[/QUOTE]

Hmm. I could defecate in my hand, but I’d rather not. If I were to wish in my other hand, nothing would happen.

Oh, I see what you did there.

I hope that the whiskey/beer/malt liquor you had made you happy. I’m not upset at all.

We’ll talk again once things stabilize.

[devilsknew]

[QUOTE=devilsknew]
It’s a hypothesis, truly I have no means to back up the theory. But I bet a study is in order. It seems like common sense, otherwise.
[/QUOTE]

You know, Occam’s razor and all of that bullshit.

[dnooman]

You quoted yourself again.

Don’t worry, I’ve done it too.

[dnooman]

Drink lots of water. Have a good breakfast tomorrow morning! Mmmmm, bacon!

[brickbacon]

[QUOTE=dnooman]
Then what is it? Liquefied muscular tissue?
[/QUOTE]

The red color of meat is, as another poster mentioned, due to myoglobin and hemoglobin . Myoglobin is a richly pigmented protein that stores oxygen in muscle cells, which use oxygen to extract the energy needed for constant activity.

When dark meat is cooked, myoglobin’s color changes depending on what the meat’s interior temperature is. Rare beef is cooked to 140° F, and myoglobin’s red color remains unchanged. Above 140° F, myoglobin loses its ability to bind oxygen, and the iron atom at the center of its molecular structure loses an electron. This process forms a tan-colored compound called hemichrome, which gives medium-done meat its color. When the interior of the meat reaches 170° F, hemichrome levels rise, and the myoglobin becomes metmyoglobin, which gives well-done meat its brown-gray shade.

Hemoglobin, the iron-containing oxygen-transport metalloprotein in the red blood cells of the blood in vertebrates and other animals, can be seen in small amounts in animal tissues even after slaughter .

1. What factors affect the color of meat and poultry?
   Myoglobin, a protein, is responsible for the majority of the red color. Myoglobin doesn’t circulate in the blood but is fixed in the tissue cells and is purplish in color. When it is mixed with oxygen, it becomes oxymyoglobin and produces a bright red color. The remaining color comes from the hemoglobin which occurs mainly in the circulating blood, but a small amount can be found in the tissues after slaughter.

Color is also influenced by the age of the animal, the species, sex, diet, and even the exercise it gets. The meat from older animals will be darker in color because the myoglobin level increases with age. Exercised muscles are always darker in color, which means the same animal can have variations of color in its muscles.

In addition, the color of meat and poultry can change as it is being stored at retail and in the home (see explanation in question 5). When safely stored in the refrigerator or freezer, color changes are normal for fresh meat and poultry.

[dnooman]

Not blood, but damn close. I figured as much, as I’m sure other people did as well.

[brickbacon]

As for why connoisseurs enjoy a steak on the rare side, I think the answer is part chemistry and part cultural. As this site points out:

Why should you have your steak rare? Look at the descriptions above and use plain logic: the more the steak is cooked the less juices there are in it. The less juices there are the less taste there is. Once your steak has been fried for a short time (at the point it reaches blue rare or rare) the juices are sealed into steak. From this point onward the heat is forcing those lovely juices out of the steak. People are often put off that a rare steak contains lots of blood. This is a fallacy: a good quality steak shouldn’t bleed much (if at all) either.

Why is this happening? because of the following :

STEAK SCIENCE
What about steaks? How does something red and slimy become dark brown, drier and full of fibers you can see?

**Meat is animal muscle. The muscle has coiled-up protein molecules. Heating up the meat makes the protein molecules unwind and gets rid of some of the water in the meat.
**
One type of protein called myoglobin, which stores oxygen, is what makes beef muscle (steak) red. Above 140 degrees, myoglobin can’t store oxygen anymore, and there’s a change in the iron contained in meat, too. Those chemical reactions are what makes beef look different when it’s cooked.

Bitzane said that a protein’s function determines its shape. “When you mess up that shape, it’s called denaturation,” she said. Cooking causes a protein to lose its shape and its ability to perform its original function.

“Fortunately, for us, it also makes it more edible,” she said.

It’s not just heat that denatures proteins. So does whipping, which is what makes egg whites beat up into stiff peaks.

“In its original form, (egg whites) won’t hold air,” Bitzane said. Whipping stretches out the protein strands so they “can wrap around air,” she said. “When they’re all coiled together, they won’t hold air.”

“Heat is one of the many things that denatures proteins,” she said. “Heat, acid, whipping — these all denature proteins.”

The taste most people are looking for is the sweet spot in a process the meat undergoes called the Maillard reaction:

Despite this fact, it is still recommended to sear a piece of meat at high temperature. But this has to do with taste. When the temperature rises above 110-120 °C, proteins and amino acids start to react with sugars present. This reaction is known as the Maillard reaction, named after the French chemist Louis-Camille Maillard. The Maillard reaction produces characteristic brown and golden colors plus a large number of taste and aroma molecules. To understand the importance of the Maillard reaction, just think of the huge difference between meat cooked in boiling water and meat cooked in a skillet at a temperature above 120 °C. The Maillard reaction is not limited to the cooking of meat. We also find products of the Maillard reaction in potato chips, bread crust, fried onions - to mention just a few. Even in vintage champagne, one can find products of the Maillard reaction. Despite the fact that the champagne is not heated to above 120 °C, storing it for several years compensates for this

So the reaction gets going around 120 degrees, which, by no coincidently, is the recommended temperature for a rare steak. As an aside you should never stick a thermometer in a steak to test it.

So you’ve gone for rare, good! How do you know if it’s rare? The most common mistake people make is sticking a knife in it to check the colour of the inside. This is the worst thing you can do – if the steak does need some more cooking it will dry up quicker. Simply press the steak; the quicker it springs back the less it has been cooked. After time you will soon been able to judge the rareness of a steak by its firmness. A steak can always be cooked for longer is too rare whereas if the steak is overdone you’ll either have to eat it as it is or throw it away and start again.

One good rough approximation of a steak’s temperature is by comparing its feel to the part of your hand right below your thumb when you are touching the tips of your fingers. A well done steak should feel like the area of your hand below your thumb when you are touching your thumb and pinky finger together. A rare steak will feel similar to when you touch you thumb and pointer finger.

[Mangetout]

[QUOTE=Balthisar]
Ground products (hamburger) present a different problem, because all of the surface nastiness is now interspersed throughout the product and has a chance to multiply prior to cooking. When you order less than medium well, anything that’s in there will still be alive and willing to attack you. For me, it’s a tough call. Some places used irradiated meat (I wish this were more popular) and so a delicious medium burger is in order. Others grind their own meat to order, and so the limited surface contamination won’t have a chance to multiply too much before you consume it. It helps that salt and other seasonings kills a lot of bacteria. At home, of course, I either cook my ground-beef to medium-well or better, or “grind” it myself (the food processor comes close; one day I’ll by a grinder at the Good Will or get an attachment for my mixer in order to get a better texture).
[/QUOTE]
I understand some places scald the outside of a cut of meat before grinding it, which enables them to produce a rare burger with a significantly lower population of pathogens (it’s not always possible - or necessary - to eliminate them all, just prevent the ingestion of a population large enough to overwhelm the immune system).

[Hunter_Hawk]

[QUOTE=dnooman]
If that were the case, wouldn’t people choose the fattiest cuts?
[/QUOTE]

Well, bear in mind that lots of people think that beef fat in large quantities is kinda gross. But other animal fats such as pork and duck are a whole nother story–braised pork belly is hugely popular, and potatoes cooked in duck fat are a little slice of heaven.

[Balthisar]

[QUOTE=devilsknew]
You don’t really think any steakhouse or restaurant grill chef is actually going to take the temp of your steak do you? 90 degrees is a useless designation. They are going to handle your steak like the other 10 steaks that they are grilling simultaneously. They are going to go by experience and feel.
[/QUOTE]

Oh, I understand that – I don’t imagine that most restaurants regularly employ thermometers for cooking. To sum up what Cervaise described, it’s like a code work that means, “I want it rare, and I know of what I speak.”

dnooman, probably, but those won’t be probe thermometers. Those will be things to ensure the refrigerators and freezers are properly calibrated, as well as deep fryers, grills, and so on. Got to make the health department happy.

[aerodave]

[QUOTE=brickbacon]
So the reaction gets going around 120 degrees, which, by no coincidently, is the recommended temperature for a rare steak.
[/QUOTE]

You’re confusing Celsius and Fahrenheit. 120°F is around the recommended internal temperature for rare steak. Medium may be, say, 135°F. The quote you provided was talking about high-temperature chemical reactions that take place above 120 degrees Celsius, or 250°F. You want to expose your steak to 120°C for good flavor, but you certainly don’t want to cook it until it reaches 120°C.

[Tibby]

The red color of meat is, as first noted by Blake, caused by the myoglobin (a pigmented hemeprotein involved in oxygenating tissue). Myoglobin is sensitive to temperature, such that the color changes from red to brown with increased temperature.

Speaking as the culinary snob that I am, the only way to order steak is **“Pittsburgh Rare”(**aka black & blue)—charred on the outside, myoglobinously intact crimson on the inside. If you weren’t familiar with this broiling descriptor (most restaurant cooking staff are, at least in the U.S.), consider yourself enlightened and order all future steaks thusly—you will thank me profusely.

[Balthisar]

[QUOTE=Dr. PoopiePants]
Speaking as the culinary snob that I am, the only way to order steak is **“Pittsburgh Rare”(**aka black & blue)—charred on the outside, myoglobinously intact crimson on the inside. If you weren’t familiar with this broiling descriptor (most restaurant cooking staff are, at least in the U.S.), consider yourself enlightened and order all future steaks thusly—you will thank me profusely.
[/QUOTE]

Oh, that’s just “bleu,” or “black and blue” as you indicate. Are you from Pittsburgh? I’m not a culinary snob myself, so I’ve never actually heard it called “Pittsburgh Rare.”

[Acid_Lamp]

Sorry, logged in under wrong username.

[nashiitashii]

[QUOTE=dnooman]
Aren’t restaurants required to have properly calibrated thermometers in the kitchens? I once managed an Arby’s and they had a log book for temps, and were religious about checking constantly. I would think that when a chef gets an order for a specific temp on the inside, he might just want to check it to make sure. Bad luck for him if the guy ordering is a food critic.
[/QUOTE]

Having worked in fast foodservice,* the calibrated thermometers are around to make sure that items that are sitting in a hot bath or a cold bath are at the proper temperature. Refrigerated items need to be in the 34-38 degrees range, whereas hot items (like soups) need to be around 175 degrees or so. Any higher than 40 degrees and lower than 160 is the “danger zone” for food safety in storage, and thus they have to check on that stuff regularly. Bigger restaurants do make use of thermometers in storage conditions, but it is less common to use thermometers while cooking when the cook is experienced.

[sub]*I was the location’s safety person, so it was part of my job to make sure that my coworkers were practicing food and occupational safety; I also would do random checks once a month at other locations on campus for the same regulations.[/sub]

[GiantRat]

[QUOTE=Balthisar]
But I am special because I like my steak bleu and my Buffalo Wild Wings wings “Blazin’” (well, I usually go for “Wild,” next step down, but I’m still more of a man than you are, and my wife is too ;)).

[/QUOTE]

You’re still not a man - Michigan doesn’t have wings worth a $h!t! Come to Upstate NY and prove your mettle!

[GiantRat]

[QUOTE=Anne Neville]
It’s definitely not blood. Mr. Neville and I eat only kosher steaks. This means, among other things, that the animal has had the blood drained out of it at slaughter and the meat has had salt put on it to draw out any remaining blood. We’re definitely not eating blood, but there is a difference between medium and well-done kosher meat.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t know if this is a religious issue for you or not. But putting salt on the exterior of a piece of meat will not and cannot remove all of the blood from a carcass. Salt, as a dessicant, draws the moisture of the blood out, and can remove most if given enough time, but I’d hate to eat a dehydrated steak. There will always be relics of blood in an organism when you eat it, since the blood is transmitted (during life) through all (or, rather, virtually all) of the tissues.

As you dehydrate the meat, so are you dehydrating some of the blood.

[Balthisar]

[QUOTE=GiantRat]
You’re still not a man - Michigan doesn’t have wings worth a $h!t! Come to Upstate NY and prove your mettle!
[/QUOTE]

I went to the Anchor Bar last year, as a matter of fact, but I found myself short of manliness that day and didn’t so the suicide wings (Ontario drains the manliness out of one).

[DSYoungEsq]

[QUOTE=dnooman]
If that were the case, wouldn’t people choose the fattiest cuts? That’s simply not the case. The highest priced cut in a steak house is a loin filet, sometimes called a filet, or a filet mignon. There is little marbling if any there.

I concur that fat adds flavor. Marbling is a key factor to choosing a good steak. I’m not talking about fat though, I’m talking about doneness.
[/QUOTE]

Nonsense. A good fillet has plenty of marbling, it’s just fine marbling. Marbling helps make a meat cut tender when you cook it.