• "Burgers are not like steak" - Food Standards Agency
    161 replies, posted
[QUOTE=ejonkou;50958046]People who say that well done is a waste clearly can't cook. If you know how to cook it it's just as good, if not better than a rare steak.[/QUOTE] Like I said before: [QUOTE=catbarf;50951039]If you want a well-done piece of beef, a burger will get you that seared taste but still be tender due to being ground. If you want a dense piece that still has the structure and texture of a cut of steak, a fatty chuck roast is cheap and will melt in your mouth after a day in the slow cooker. A filet mignon cooked to well-done tastes the same as that chuck, but is tough and costs several times more. It's a cut of meat specifically chosen for being edible and delicious without being thoroughly cooked all the way through, and you're torching it, completely defeating the point. If you want well-done meat I've got nothing against that, everyone has their preferences, but it's awfully silly to use an expensive cut of meat when a cheap one will taste the same and actually be more tender, hence a waste. Just buy some chuck and make a pot roast.[/QUOTE] Buying a steak and cooking it to well-done is like buying a hundred-dollar bottle of whiskey and using it to make punch. It'll [i]work[/i], but you're completely defeating the purpose of buying the expensive stuff. I can respect wanting well-done beef, but why on earth would you buy a steak for that purpose?
[QUOTE=Loriborn;50944270]eh, the chances of anything serious happening, assuming you're not immunocompromised, is incredibly low, and you're probably more likely to get sick from touching the door knob entering the restaurant than from a slightly undercooked burger[/QUOTE] Death by food poisoning waiting to happen. [editline]29th August 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=catbarf;50967200]Like I said before: Buying a steak and cooking it to well-done is like buying a hundred-dollar bottle of whiskey and using it to make punch. It'll [I]work[/I], but you're completely defeating the purpose of buying the expensive stuff. I can respect wanting well-done beef, but why on earth would you buy a steak for that purpose?[/QUOTE] I value your opinion, and i agree this is what is said in elitist culinary circles but it is up to the customer to decide that. A piece of filet pur still will taste far far better then a piece of shenkel even if both are well done. And the way you cook it does change the flavour, but not deminish it or 'ruin' it in any way. Fact is however, well done is safer then medium rare or rare. especially with burgers or any ground meat from multiple animals where cross contamination from processing is not just possible, but pretty much guaranteed.
I've had pink burgers plenty of times, it tastes better IMO but now when I think about it, it's a pretty dumb risk.
[QUOTE=Blizzerd;50967346] I value your opinion, and i agree this is what is said in elitist culinary circles but it is up to the customer to decide that. A piece of filet pur still will taste far far better then a piece of shenkel even if both are well done. And the way you cook it does change the flavour, but not deminish it or 'ruin' it in any way. Fact is however, well done is safer then medium rare or rare. especially with burgers or any ground meat from multiple animals where cross contamination from processing is not just possible, but pretty much guaranteed.[/QUOTE] If you order a steak well-done, you're basically saying "give me the worst cut you have." Decent chefs, and I'm not talking about the microwave operators at Applebees, know very well that a choice cut cooked well-done is wasted meat, because people who eat steaks well-done have a tendency to replace the juiciness and flavor of a medium steak with steak sauce or some other flavor additive. The actual flavor of a steak comes from the fat. When you cook a steak (or any other cut of meat) well-done, you're melting the flavorful fat and leaving behind the tough, dry, sinewy muscle that carries little flavor in comparison. It's why certain gristly cuts are so highly-valued, and why slow-cooked, fat-loaded meat is delicious compared to tough, sinewy, chewy throwaway cuts. If you buy a filet mignon and then proceed to cook all the fat out of it, you have a piece of meat that is literally no different from a $5 slab of factory reject Walmart meat almost devoid of fat. It becomes chewy and tough and the flavor is melted straight out of it. I was a picky eater as a kid and I only ate my steaks well-done until I was like 14. Then I switched to medium-well, and now I'm down to medium-rare, and the difference in flavor is ridiculous. Cooking well-done "changes the flavor," sure, but it also removes the entire reason you're paying a high premium for a gristly piece of fat-loaded meat in the first place, in that you melt away all the fat and toughen up the inside of the steak. If you enjoy that, go for it, but it's an enormous waste of money when a dirt-cheap slab of sinewy, fat-free steak will have that same flavor without paying someone to melt away the fat they're charging you a premium for.
Medium Rare burgers wouldn't aren't dangerous provided the meat is ground fresh on site. Problem is that 99% of restaurants don't do that (because from personal experience grinding large quantities of meat is a pain in the ass). [editline]30th August 2016[/editline] Also I have no idea how the hell anyone enjoys well done steaks. A well done steak has more in common with charcoal then actual meat.
[QUOTE=.Isak.;50972025]If you order a steak well-done, you're basically saying "give me the worst cut you have." Decent chefs, and I'm not talking about the microwave operators at Applebees, know very well that a choice cut cooked well-done is wasted meat, because people who eat steaks well-done have a tendency to replace the juiciness and flavor of a medium steak with steak sauce or some other flavor additive. The actual flavor of a steak comes from the fat. When you cook a steak (or any other cut of meat) well-done, you're melting the flavorful fat and leaving behind the tough, dry, sinewy muscle that carries little flavor in comparison. It's why certain gristly cuts are so highly-valued, and why slow-cooked, fat-loaded meat is delicious compared to tough, sinewy, chewy throwaway cuts. If you buy a filet mignon and then proceed to cook all the fat out of it, you have a piece of meat that is literally no different from a $5 slab of factory reject Walmart meat almost devoid of fat. It becomes chewy and tough and the flavor is melted straight out of it. I was a picky eater as a kid and I only ate my steaks well-done until I was like 14. Then I switched to medium-well, and now I'm down to medium-rare, and the difference in flavor is ridiculous. Cooking well-done "changes the flavor," sure, but it also removes the entire reason you're paying a high premium for a gristly piece of fat-loaded meat in the first place, in that you melt away all the fat and toughen up the inside of the steak. If you enjoy that, go for it, but it's an enormous waste of money when a dirt-cheap slab of sinewy, fat-free steak will have that same flavor without paying someone to melt away the fat they're charging you a premium for.[/QUOTE] Only bad rotisseurs/grillardins would do this, in the restaurants i worked you would get sacked for stuff like that. You definitely taste the difference even if well done between a good cut and a cut with less value or a conglomerate cut. It is true some selection happens depending on the baking time of the meat, but you have it in a reverse order, you would pick the cuts with more fat to prevent the meat from drying out during baking. And you bake the meat on a lower temperature to have the fat last longer in its solid form again to prevent it from drying out. Every customer is Jean Anthelme, Every dish gets a star.
[QUOTE=sgman91;50960880]Well done steak being worse than medium/medium rare steak is about as objective as food can get. The more people know about cooking, the less likely they are to want steak cooked over medium. Liking well done steak over medium steak is like saying you don't like using salt in food. I mean, sure, you're welcome to your opinion, but it's just plain wrong as far as actual flavor goes.[/QUOTE] Lol, there's nothing objective about food.
[QUOTE=ejonkou;50972133]Lol, there's nothing objective about food.[/QUOTE] I'm pretty sure it should be possible to create a dish that is objectively awful. Objectively good is however rather hard to pull off.
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