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Journal Em Emalb's Journal: Like sands through the hour glass... 25

Journal by Em Emalb

slowly, ever so slowly does slashdot creep along.

Ah well, it seems that this may not be related to the other problems, since it goes slow, then speeds up some.

This weekend basically sucked. It was short and went by in the blink of an eye.

Why don't steak houses marinate their beef? For the love of God, man, marinate.

I went to a pretty good steak joint saturday night (sarcasm: you can tell how good the food is by the price, right?) and actually got a pretty good steak.

The meat was tender, the temperature was just about right. The meat itself just had that dead cow taste though. A little marinating would have made a pleasant meal an extraordinary one.

Why don't they marinate? I'm not talking Em's super secret special flavoring addition marinade or anything, but basic salt/pepper, garlic, hell, even some store bought marinade would have been better.

Lucky for them, the steak was good enough by itself that it didn't require any steak sauce. To me, the ultimate in dishonoring a steak is to slather steak sauce on it. I reserve this horrible fate for pieces of the flesh that would be better served by a chalupa at Taco Hell.

I'd imagine asking for steak sauce would be a helluva statement in a place that prides themselves on great steaks.

For the record:
A well prepared steak requires no sauce. The meat will be tender and juicy, and if steak sauce is placed upon said tender, juicy meat, the Gods of Cow Flesh will be angered. If you are particularly daring, try putting ketchup* on a steak. Watch the onlookers gasp, the heavens open, and tears of frustration rain down upon you for your transgressions. Do not put ketchup on a steak.

*it's ketchup. Not catsup. Spell it like it's said.

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Like sands through the hour glass... More

Like sands through the hour glass...

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  • cause, when you get down to it, isn't marinating just watered down steak sauce, applied before cooking? a truely great steak, prepared by a master, needs nothing added.

  • My wife got me I'm Just Here for the Foor by Alton Brown for my birthday. Last Saturday, I made his beef marinade (brine?) which consisted of soy sauce, worchestershire sauce, teriaki sauce, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, a few cloves of lightly crushed garlic, extra virgin olive oil, and dijon mustard. Soak the cow for a few hours, then grill.

    I've also modified my grilling technique for steaks. I use a gas grill (mostly because I don't have a good place to get rid of charcoal) which after I preheat, I leave on preheat until the temperature needle is maxed out. Toss on the steak. Rotate (not turn) after a couple of minutes, turn after a couple of minutes more, rotate once more after a couple of minutes, cook a couple of minutes more then remove.

    The outside gets a nice light char to it, but the inside stays as pink as I like it.

    "Now that's Good Eats!"

    • ...or even I'm Just Here for the Food...

    • Why do you go rotate, flip, rotate, instead of flip, flip-rotate, flip?

      • I don't know. I guess I've always heard that it's bad to flip your meat multiple times. I've never really thought about it...

        • I'll tell you the reason I flip, flip-rotate, flip: Jacques Pepin said so. Seriously though, he gave a reason. Said that cooking shortens the muscle fibers. Flipping allows them to be pulled again in the same direction. This is similar to the reason why you rotate at all: to get the shrinkage even. Anyway, the discussion is probably as valid as vi vs. emacs (since we all know emacs is better, why argue?)

          • You know, I've never understood the holy war between vi and emacs. They both suck, although, I've never had to use an editor long-term, so there may be useful features hidden within that I don't know about. Whenever I need to edit a config file, I pull up pico or (so shoot me) joe.

            BTW, Alton used the rotate-flip-rotate method on one of his shows, so I guess that's why I did it that way. I'll have to try the flip-flip/rotate-flip method next time to see if it turns out any different.

            I should start up a Slash site for cooking since lately it seems like I've been getting more food tips than tech news from /. Spicedot?

  • Who goes to Taco Bell and orders the steak? It seems a little shady to me.
  • I don't know, maybe I'm a little odd, but I guess I like that dead cow taste.

    When I go to the steak house, I usually order a 16 oz or bigger hunk of barely cooked moo cow goodness.

    Cowboys never used marinades, I don't remember Bon Jovi singing about marinading his steaks, nope, it was all steal horses and six strings.

    The way I see it, if you want a large hunk of beef, you go to a steak house, if you want marinades, you go to some fancy french restaurant.

    • I don't know, maybe I'm a little odd, but I guess I like that dead cow taste.

      Yep, if I go for a steak and it comes marinaded, I'll complain and ask for another unless it was mentioned on the menu (in which case, I'll probably avoid it). I want my steak to taste of cow. The one true way to cook a steak is to fry some butter in a hot pan. Perform a brief introduction: steak meet pan, pan meet steak. Then eat. Add no salt, pepper, mustard, marinade, or other contaminant. A friend of mine summed it up perfectly when he said "a good steak should have a pulse".

  • I've always felt that a good steak can hold its own without marinade and sauces. Maybe a little butter if it's too dry.

    On the other hand, a good marinade can make a bad steak tasty. A local grocery store had a sale on steak this weekend, so I ended up buying about 6 pounds @ $1.70/lb. Not what I would call premium quality meat- no marbling to speak of (then again, that's pretty much the way London broil always seems to be). Anyway, a solid 8 hours in a good marinade and 6 hours of low temperature roasting yielded some mighty fine beef jerky.

    Mmmm beef... it's what's for breakfast :-)
  • Shouldn't it be spelled S-T-A-K-E ?

    Marinade: 1/4 cup of Soy Sauce, Garlic Powder
    Easy, simple and kicks ass

    Steak sauce - some steaks need it, some don't. I usually taste the steak first and apply as necessary - A1 is the best.
  • Since we're on the topic of meat...
    Anybody ever had Kobe beef? I hear that the cows in Kobe, Japan are beer-fed and given massages.

    I can't think of a better way to spend my time before the hammer party!!

    Its enough to make you believe in re-incarnation.

    Marinade factoids... [about.com]
    for those who don't just want flavor.
    • I've heard that a Kobe Beef hamburger (ground up mind you) costs $50 USD. Never will have the $ for that, but very interested in trying once... Ever since I saw the Iron Chef show where they battled with Kobe Beef I've sparked an interest.

      I found a site which explains the 'massaging' and feeding the beer here [kobe-beef.com]. It appears there's a science to the management of cattle. Beer is served to them to increase their appetite during the summer, and it's believed brushing and massaging the cow helps in keeping the cow content. A Happy Cow produces great meat. Mmm... meat...

      • Everyone (in California, at least) knows that Good Cheese comes from Happy Cows, and Happy Cows come from California.

        I agree, though, with the marinade for beef; you need some tenderness that just the right cooking doesn't give you. I had a fairly good steak at Outback the other night... so tender I didn't need my knife --the 7 oz Victoria's Filet Medium Well, fyi. It was more medium than well, which is how I like it. Pink, but not still mooing. I don't think that you need to make a steak taste like marinade to make it tender, though, and a little steak sauce can cover *most* bad steak imperfections.

        On the Alton front: we brined our turkey this year because of his suggestion, and it was the BEST, most moist turkey I'd ever had. And no, it was *not* salty.

        Kobe beef sounds interesting, but I don't think dropping $50 on a hamburger is worth it, even if it's the best tasting moo on the planet. Especially then, because everything else afterwards would taste like cardboard.

        Try bison. It's yummy, like beef, but supposedly much leaner. All I know is that it's expensive enough for a special day (like 14 feb if you celebrate that kind of thing) but not so expensive that you'd kick yourself for getting a taste for it.

        • Good Cheese comes from Happy Cows

          they must have really happy cows in france. and it's true that french cheese tastes differently outside of france. france doesn't require pasteurizing milk for cheese, which lets a lot more flavour stay in the cheese. i'm also a big fan of the UHT milk they have in france. they leave a lot more cream in the milk.

          to bring it back to steak, i am remembering this steak i had in france with a pepper roquefort sauce. man that was good. it was three years ago and i still salivate at the thought of that steak. medium rare and cheesy. mmm.
    • Like others, I've seen $50 for a Kobe beef burger. I was looking at it, and it seems that theres one startling difference between the Kobe burger and typical burgers: the kobe beef burger had a great deal more fat in it. I'm guessing around 25%. Most people like that nasty dried out 10% shit, and wonder why they burn everything, and it tastes gross.

      It's called fat. Many flavor compounds are oil soluble, not water soluble. It is imperative that there is enough fat to carry these.
  • If I order a steak at a restaurant, and the meat is maranaded in any way before cooking, I am very offended (unless the menu indicated otherwise). I feel unless otherwise noted, nothing other than salt should touch the steak before it hits the grill (despite the salt policy of the California BBQ Association).
    Same goes for after the case; if they add a bernaise or peppercorn sauce without it appearing on a menu, I get quite pissed off (even more in the case of peppercorn).
    Regarding steak sauce - I always ask for some, but it's usually for my potato.
    • What about butter?

      A frequent trend (Ruth's Chris steak house is guilty) is frying in butter... I dunno, that's pretty much adulterating the flavor in the most fundamental sense. Maybe I'm wrong...

      I agree that adding some salt is okay...

      but butter? Good god!
      • Butter falls into the salt, pepper, and oil category. Yes, it is an adulteration, but its use is so central to cooking that it's not entirely taboo.

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