Veganism?

[reverendjeremiah]

Have you even eaten meat that wasn't seasoned, fried, or drizzled in sauce? I have. It's worse than chewing on cardboard.

Then you arent cooking it right...either that or you are buying cheap meat.

I was never the one buying it, my mother was. And she'd get it from Wal-Mart, so what does that tell you?

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I have also eaten raw bacon... rather salty.

I had raw bacon once, too. But I was around 5 or 6 years old, so I don't remember the taste. What I do remember is my mom and my brother freaking out about it.

Wallmart meat is that crap beef from Canada. They shoot it up with saline water for 2 reasons; Longer shelf life and it makes the steak look bigger. When you cook it it shrinks much smaller than normal, and even if you try to cook it rare or medium rare the inside still looks brown, and the blood is more like salt water. Me and my wife no longer buy beef from wallmart as we consider it unedible even with seasoning.

If you get a GOOD steak, and cook it medium rare, it is pink and the juices run almost red. Even without seasoning, if you cook it on a grill, it will taste delicious.

I will also argue that your mother probably froze her steaks as well. When you freeze a steak, you might as well expect it to taste like cardboard, because all of the frost that appears on the steak when it is frozen is actually the steaks juices being constricted to the surface. When it thaws out all of its flavor is setting in a puddle under the slabs of steak (which now can be called cardboard, as they will be dryer and tougher).

Here is what I suggest:
#1 - When you want steak, dont be afraid to pay good money for it. Make sure it is grade AAA, and if you have to, ask for help and make sure the steak isnt shot up with "water" (they usually will not admit they put saline in it). Do NOT buy steaks from door to door salesmen, as every bit of meat is shot up with that crap.
#2 - look for good marbling. Marbling is the ratio of meat to fat. Big hunks of fat between bright red hunks of meat is NOT a good steak. No fat and lots of red meat will be dry as well. You want very small strands of fat between small sections of red meat. In other words, the fat should look like a net across the steak. This fat will melt and guarentee a juicy steak if you follow the rest of the instructions.
#3 - do not freeze the steak. You might as well go buy a package of beef jerky instead. Put the meat in the fridge as is, or put a shot of red wine, a shot of vinegar, and a pinch of slat and pepper in it and let it sit. You can let that steak sit for a good 2 days in the fridge like that, but I would suggest cooking it before the 2 day mark.
#4 - 3 hours before you cook the steak, take it out of the fridge and place it on something iron, like a skillet, that is room temperature. You want the steak to be 100% to its core room temperature before you cook it, otherwise it will not cook correctly and evenly.
#5 - Use a seasoned cast iron skillet to cook the steak inside. Seasoning the skillet means taking the brand new skillet and putting a hunk of pork fat (or olive oil if you are vegan) in side of it and rub the inner walls down with it and put it in the oven at 250 degress for a while. DONT LEAVE THE PAN. Every now and then open it up and stir the fat around the inner walls. When the grease starts to smoke, take it out and stir it on the inner walls until it is cool enough to dispose of. Keep doing this until the inside of the pan is black.
#6 - If you are cooking outside then use charcoal. If you have a gass grill then place about 3 hunks of charcoal near the burners so you can get that flavor. Do not leave this by itself. The charcoal may fall out of the bottom of the grill, so you have to watch it.
#7 - Cooking with a grill you should follow the "rule of three". Hold your hand three inches from the cooking surface. If it takes you three seconds to feel the burn then the surface is above 300 degrees. Cook the steak 3 minutes on each side for each level of doneness.

3 minutes per side= rare
6 minutes per side= medium rare
9 minutes per side= done

Its not a perfect system, and it requires the steak to be roughly 1 inch thick for it to work properly.
#8 - allow the steak about 5 or so minutes to rest from the heat before serving. If you did it correct, without cutting it open to see the insides, it will yeild a delicious and moist steak regardless of doneness.


Above is EXCELLENT marbling

If I had a choice I would pick the one in the middle, but its going to be a bit dry. The one on the right will be good for stir fry, the one on the left may have lots of grissle.