Steak enthusiasts may enjoy a series of episodes on aging primal beef cuts, and comparison cooking of the resulting steaks at various stages and by various methods, which can be found on the Glen and Friends channel on YouTube. The channel has a very practical, down to earth vibe - the extravagance of dry-aging primal cuts is an anomaly. He researches and tests recipes from vintage and historical cookbooks, makes maple sugar and syrup from trees tapped in his suburban Toronto backyard, cans produce from the vegetable garden, and recreates things like Dr. Pepper and Kentucky Fried Chicken by preparing, comparing, and tinkering with already-circulating copycat recipes.
I now prefer my own frikadellen or meatfoaf to a steak, unless it’s teriyaki sirloin. I eat less meat than I did 25 years ago, and these days find steak hard to digest.
Good point. I ate ribeyes most of my life but for the last five years or more almost exclusively eat tenderloin. I eat it four times a week on average. They’re easy, fast, perfect portion, and tastes wonderfully with salt, pepper, garlic, thyme, and butter. When particularly adventurous I use habanero salt.
True for us also. And we’ve definitely downgraded our beef. Half a dozen years ago I cooked a butcher shop prime grade standing rib roast for Christmas. Family complained it was too rich. Next time, I bought choice grade. They still found it fatty. Then I started buying supermarket special or select grade, roasting low and slow just past rare and they are happy.
Somehow, I can eat fatty heritage pork more easily than beef. ???
Another steak myth, “Chuck steak is tough.” Denver steak, cut from chuck, is trendy and expensive, compared to its primal source. Tender as love and very rich. And pricey.
But it has nothing to do with Kenji’s article but simple physics that leaving the steak out for one hour at rt won’t raise the internal temperature not even close to rt
Rib-eye (or chuck-eye) was always my favorite cut, but I’m having the same problems. Beef fat and chicken fat for some reason don’t agree with me as well as they used to.
I’ll still make it and try to avoid the fat as much as possible, then suffer the consequences. I like sirloin, flank & hanger, too, and they’re much leaner
Pork or lamb? No probz. Glad I’m not the only one.
Same deal here. Good meat from farm country. I’m a toucher. It’s worked for many years for me. S&P is all you need. I’m also a one flipper for flat steaks; not religiously, but usually. I just made bacon wrapped sirloins that have three sides, so I flip to those sides only once and touch. If it touches soft, still, I’ll hit the three sides again, quickly.
I used to think marbling was everything. Then I had a steak from a Scottish Highland. NO marbling and the best steak I’ve ever had. They also eat things other bovines won’t touch. Thistle? No prob.
Grassfed is fine and dandy, but I prefer a corn finish. The flavor of meat is enhanced very much by the flavor of the fat. I’ve had this debate on CH. Where I work, we have two cheese factories within a half mile of each other; one organic (grassfed) and the other conventional. No contest in cheese, conventional has better flavor and texture. But, those who prefer the “full picture” grassfed, can have the OV cheese. Eat what you like.
The leaner cattle tend to taste less. Fat is flavor. No myth. Corn fat is better flavor to many of us. I get to taste them side by side all the time. Conventional farm raised is what I prefer to buy. I can see the one I’m getting a quarter from every day. Where I live people can discern the difference. Not in their heads, it’s on their forks.
I prefer grass-fed & finished. South American pasture-raised and finished beef has more flavor & better texture to me. I find the corn-fed often to be on the mushy side.
Of course, in the end everything we eat is about personal preferences.
I’m skeptical in a blind test that they can just as I am skeptical a person can accurately discern a taste difference between angus from charolais from hereford. There are just too many variables in play. And I completely agree people should eat what they like.
I don’t know about Charolais/Hereford. I taste the difference between grass fed and conventional. I know a whole slew of people who do. Most of our grassfed/organic producers sell through OV, so I get pretty good grassfed. Just not as good, TO ME, as the conventional corn finishers.
I defer to your opinion you can, and I believe the others think they can. I doubt the average shopper, actually far more than the average shopper, can accurately identify the difference beyond random chance in a blind test. There are just too many variables in play between animals, quality, cuts, age, seasoning, and cooking.
No, but my samples are of local beef, some grass fed only, others conventional. T bone, there is a difference. I don’t even have a deep affinity for beef, I’m a lamb guy. But you can tell a difference. Maybe to the average shopper. I don’t know. Fact is, I don’t shop for meat. I talk to a farmer about the hanging weight and arrange with the butcher the date of slaughter and cut up. Not really shopping.
If I go to WalMart and buy a conventional and a grass fed, then I doubt most, including me, could tell a difference. Never tried, though, so I could be wrong. I believe people when they tell me they taste a difference, as I taste a difference. Even if I didn’t taste a difference, I tend to believe folks who tell me their tastes.
I think there’s a whole lot of palates here much more refined than mine. I ask you to try a grass fed next to a conventional, so long as you can source them to places that you’ve trusted in the past.
It might be in my head. My mouth is in my head, though. Feed means everything to flavor. I’ve eaten all kinds of dairy cattle raised for beef. Gotta do something with the males. I never see veal anymore. That used to be the dairy males. I like the corn finish and feel I taste that difference.
Agreed that fat is a key part of flavor in beef but corn finished has much less onega-3 which for me is part of good beef flavor. In addition, cows can’t digest corn and so they have quite severe stomach problems when fed corn and other grains which has an impact on the quality of the meat
