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Eh, yes and no. Saying that a well done steak is full of carcinogens is not really true. A burnt one is, it is the charing that has the carcinogens. A properly cooked well done - while still a dried out piece of shoe leather compared to a properly cooked steak - is no more or less charred than that medium well. The key being "properly cooked".
It's just that the well-done crowd will never notice that their piece of beef had almost no marbling. But the rare crowd will. This allows us to use more of the side of beef that we paid for, without any discernible quality loss -- the well-done crowd has no idea what they're missing.
I hear this over and over and understand that it's what's accepted in the restaurant industry, but it's not true. In fact, the opposite is true. A well-marbled cut of meat will retain more fat and therefore more flavor when cooked well-done than a leaner cut; conversely, a leaner cut will retain enough fat to be flavorful when cooked to no more than medium but will lose most of its flavor when cooked beyond medium.
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Basically, the rare crowd are the more sophisticated diners. Sorry, blackened, charred, very-well done crowd. But that's how it is.
The "sophisticated diner" is a myth perpetrated by the restaurant industry. Sophisticated diners are basically lemmings who eat what those "in the know" tell them to eat regardless of personal preference. Real people eat what tastes good to them.
I hear this over and over and understand that it's what's accepted in the restaurant industry, but it's not true. In fact, the opposite is true. A well-marbled cut of meat will retain more fat and therefore more flavor when cooked well-done than a leaner cut; conversely, a leaner cut will retain enough fat to be flavorful when cooked to no more than medium but will lose most of its flavor when cooked beyond medium.
You are probably right that you will get the least ammount of variance doing things as you propose. The problem is that a chef, particularly at a high end dinner, is not worried about variance from the majority to those few who order well done meat. They are worried about the least ammount of variance and the highest possible quality for the majority of diners and/or producing the finest quality product as often as possible.
That means that the poorer cuts that would reduce that search for "perfection" to the standard diner will instead get sold to those few out there ordering the well done, because as long as it's not red/pink they don't really care or know. And even a poorer cut coming from a top kitchen is going to be supperior to what 98% of people can get anywhere else and/or do themself.
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The "sophisticated diner" is a myth perpetrated by the restaurant industry. Sophisticated diners are basically lemmings who eat what those "in the know" tell them to eat regardless of personal preference. Real people eat what tastes good to them.
Wrong. There really are palates that are better able to distinguish flavors, and it is not a subjective thing that there is more and superior flavor in a med rare steak compared to a well done one. Personal taste is fine, order what you like but that doesn't mean we have to ignore what most people realize - that it simply can not be as moist or flavorful as a less cooked steak.
A properly cooked well-done steak isn't any more "burnt" than one that's medium rare. The inside is just drier. Like I said before, charred meat of any kind may be cancerous. Some amount of charring is necessary to get that desirable brown crust anyway. It's simply a matter of degree.
Eh, yes and no. Saying that a well done steak is full of carcinogens is not really true. A burnt one is, it is the charing that has the carcinogens. A properly cooked well done - while still a dried out piece of shoe leather compared to a properly cooked steak - is no more or less charred than that medium well. The key being "properly cooked".
The carcinogens are formed mainly from exposure to high temperatures. To cook a steak to well done typically involves a longer exposure to high temperatures and as a result more carinogens are formed.
We're mainly talking about grilling here not braising or some other low-temperature cooking method, and HCAs are still formed from lower temperature cooking like oven roasting anyway.
Go order a well done steak and they're either going to:
a.) leave it on the grill longer
b.) grill it for the same amount of time, then finish it in a ~400-500 degree oven.
More HCAs are formed either way. They also form more in meat with lower water content (e.g. dry, overcooked meat).
However you want to get around it well done beef is going to have a lot more than medium rare beef all else in being equal.
Last edited by EugeneOnegin; 05-20-2013 at 10:48 AM..
The carcinogens are formed mainly from exposure to high temperatures. To cook a steak to well done typically involves a longer exposure to high temperatures and as a result more carinogens are formed.
We're mainly talking about grilling here not braising or some other low-temperature cooking method, and HCAs are still formed from lower temperature cooking like oven roasting anyway.
Go order a well done steak and they're either going to:
a.) leave it on the grill longer
b.) grill it for the same amount of time, then finish it in a ~400-500 degree oven.
More HCAs are formed either way. They also form more in meat with lower water content (e.g. dry, overcooked meat).
However you want to get around it well done beef is going to have a lot more than medium rare beef all else in being equal.
Maybe, maybe not ... I am a former chef and cook, but no scientist when it comes to this type of dicussion. But my understanding of it is that the carcinogens are actually located in the charred grill marks or crust on the meat.
If I am correct in that understanding, then when cooked properly in a quality restaraunt a medium rare and a well done steak will have the same on that, as both steaks will be seared on a grill top, and then finished in the oven (the well done just being left longer in the oven, but no significant additional searing/charring of the outside should really occur during this time). Maybe I am wrong in my understanding though.
ordering a well done rib-eye at a restaurant is telling the chef (in his eyes) to cook a protein to its least potential- it'd be like hiring a ho, and just holding her hand.....it just aint right
All that I know is this- if I pay my money for a particular cut of steak and you sub that for an old piece of meat or a lesser cut.......you just signed the permission slip to getting your ass kicked. Not saying that I will, but get over yourself and give the paying customers what they're asking & paying for.
All that I know is this- if I pay my money for a particular cut of steak and you sub that for an old piece of meat or a lesser cut.......you just signed the permission slip to getting your ass kicked. Not saying that I will, but get over yourself and give the paying customers what they're asking & paying for.
You are not getting a steak that is old as in being bad. You are likely to wind up with a cut that was mangled by the cutter, comes from the end and is not as good as the others, is lacking the marbling that the other quality cuts have or is in some other way defficient compared to the other desireable cuts and thus can not be served to someone who would know the difference. If there aren't any such defficient cuts then you will get the same steak as your medium rare friend. But if there are you will get served it, and you won't ever even realize it.
Wrong. There really are palates that are better able to distinguish flavors, and it is not a subjective thing that there is more and superior flavor in a med rare steak compared to a well done one. Personal taste is fine, order what you like but that doesn't mean we have to ignore what most people realize - that it simply can not be as moist or flavorful as a less cooked steak.
You are mixing up your statements. There are palates that are better able to distinguish flavors and there well may be more flavors in a med rare steak. But, to state that the additional flavor is superior is not a given. More flavor <> superior taste. The amount of flavor and distinguishing ability in a palate may objective but taste is subjective. For me, mint ice cream has much more flavor than vanilla ice cream but, since that flavor is a nasty, nasty thing, it is inferior.
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