Originally Posted by
corky
Well I am all for rule breaking and it isn't that I couldn't eat a big rib eye or lobster in the morning...I would just feel odd going to the trouble of cooking it plus I really like wine with a steak & I don't drink that in the morning. Eating a tbs of mayo out of the jar? Nothing unusual about that to me. I rarely eat just butter but I have been known to put so much butter on a piece of bread that it is almost like just the butter. Of course, these are all done very rarely because I don't want to die next week. I try to eat healthy at least 80% of the time.
I won't be buying that grass fed steak again for the reasons you stated. Besides the gaminess, it wasn't very well marbled. Thank god I grilled up a bunch of onions with it because they helped with the flavor. I would try the Aussie version. I love Australian lamb.
Tastes especially in food are, of course, highly individualized but, generally speaking, the concept of grass-fed beef definitely sounds a whole lot more appetizing in theory and on paper than its experience in reality
In my view, most who have grown up with USDA Prime cornfed beef will likely find the grass-fed version here underwhelming, overly lean, too chewy, gamey in a bad way (unlike the dry-aged type) and the only thing more overhyped than the marketing is its price—buyer’s remorse comes to mind here. Conversely, the experience is the almost the direct opposite when those who have grown up with grass-fed beef try our cornfed ones for the first time, and you can see their expression on that first bite that just screams, “wow, this is better than anything I’ve ever had.”
And, to put into context, while I may not have covered the globe as extensively as some of you FT’ers here, I have been to my share of places where I’ve tried the best steaks they have to offer including Kobe and Matsuda (Matsuzaka) beef in Japan; and, in my very humble opinion, I’d take the best Chicago ribeye over any of them everyday of the week and twice on Sundays.
And, to your point, the correct wine pairing can potentially be sublime. A well marbled dry aged ribeye (think David Burke’s steakhouse in Chicago before it closed) is still the best pairing I’ve ever had with a fine Cabernet with that sought-after strong taste of cassis—again, IMHO pairs better with our steaks than anything I’ve ever had in France.