mapu

bloody!

Starwood Lurker

Crusty on the outside, medium rare on the inside with an affinity towards the rare end of the spectrum.

There is a word for this, but since I am 57 going on 75, I can't recall what it is at the moment.

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William R. Sanders
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b1513

I think it's Pittsburgh style.

Bobette

whiteboy

medium rare to medium

CarolynUK

Well done.

And I hate all the "steak snobbery" that goes on out there. If I am paying for it I want it cooked the way I like it! I don't CARE if all the food fascists say I should have it cooked rare - I hate the texture of rare meat, and don't like blood on the rest of the food on my plate. They can eat theirs the way they want it without any complaint from me - just leave me alone to have mine the way I want it too!

And I agree with the poster above - well done does NOT mean cremated - it means cooked through and still juicy - and the deep fried steak chef would get his returned to him!

4now

Now that I'm old, I like my steak well done but not charred. That means I'm going to be at the restuarant table a long time.

marksskram

Depends on my expected/experienced quality of the meat. Medium rare if it's good quality, medium otherwise.

violist

Deep-fried is about the only way to get a juicy well-done steak.

One sears the outside and then plops the thing in the fryer, and
the product is actually much better than the standard method.

4now

hahaha
Wonder how many of those deep fried steaks I've eaten and never known the difference.

thegeneral

It's not snobbery. Restaurants rely on their reputations to stay in business and pay their staff. When they are forced to cook sub-quality food, that reputation, and the jobs of many people, are put on the line. When you say your steak at X was dry, that goes a long way with other people.

In terms of your other comments, you make it sound like there's only the choice of rare or well done. There's a nice big range in between. What you are describing your steak as is medium-medium well and not well done. In terms of the fluids on the plate, whoever cooked it likely hasn't let the meat rest properly. Also, dry aging it in your kitchen (even a little) can get rid of a lot of the excess moisture in the meat.

Well done is cremated. Cooked through and juice is a lot lower than well done.

I worked in a restaurant before where we served other meats besides beef. In cases, we'd have to tell customers that ordering something above medium was really not something that the kitchen would do as it wouldn't taste any good. This one guy in particular went off and insisted on well done. I told him it would be dry and the kitchen didn't want to cook food like that. I suggested some other meats and dishes on the menu, but he kept it up and got his way.

I checked on them when they started eating and they were fine and I asked how things were as I cleaned their plates and he noted that the meat was dry. I calmly noted that the kitchen doesn't like to cook that meat above medium as it dries out during cooking. He looked like an idiot in front of those around him.

Moral of that story is that every plate that goes out is your reputation. Forcing the kitchen to cook things to ruination puts a lot of people's jobs at risk. You either do things properly or you might as well not do them.

nkedel

That may to some extent a regional difference, but what would you call a steak that's cooked through but juicy?

The standard American ranges, AFAICT, are:
well done - cooked through
medium well - mostly cooked through, with some pink.
medium - cooked to a pink throughout, without red.
medium-rare - cooked mostly pink throughout, with some red.
rare - red through.

OTOH, these guys seem to agree with you more - http://www.colinmcnulty.com/blog/ima...m-welldone.jpg

I've hit a few places where their definitions were shifted up by one, mostly in the midwest (ie they'd call "cooked through" medium well, and what I'd call medium rare medium) which may explain your position on it.


If it was a beef specialty restaurant that happened to serve other things, that wouldn't help - I'd still be telling my friends "these guys don't know how to do a proper well-done steak," and I'd warn even rare eaters away from it. If it's not a beef specialty place, well, thanks for the warning, and I'd order something else.

Which means they don't know how to cook it beyond medium without drying out, not that there's an inherent problem with cooking. If you can't cook a well-done steak without making it dry, by all means, don't take those orders, but having had some very good steaks medium-well and well (by the above definitions) I know it's possible to do it right (at least with some steak cuts. I'm not a filet fan to begin with, and I could not say for certain that you can do one well without killing it.)

4now

One pays for one's mistakes. It was the right thing to cook that steak well done.

CarolynUK

I can cook steaks (and lamb,and burgers) so they are just cooked all the way through (no trace of pink left). Brown and juicy in the middle and crisp on the outside. That is what I call a well done steak.

If I can do it as a mere housewife - why can a so- called professional chef not manage something as simple as that?? There is no need whatsoever to cook a steak so far that is is dry in the middle apart from total incompetence in the kitchen department.

I love meat but I like it cooked through with no hint of pink and definitely not red and bloody. There is no need at all to cremate it to the staus of boot leather to make it well done !

I dislike the texture of not so well cooked meat, and as stated hate the blood mixing with my sauce and vegetables/ salad - in fact so much so that it provokes a gag reflex that makes me throw up if I am faced with it on my plate.

If restaurants and their chefs offer meats cooked to order - that is exactly what they should do - after all - the customer is paying so they should be able to have their food the way they like it - not the way the chef (or the food fascists) tells them they should like it!

Here in the UK we once had a very temperamental celebrity chef (Nico Ladenis - whatever happened to him?) who used to come out of the kitchen and throw paddies at paying customers who dared to ask for condiments, or for well done meats or challenged the menu in any way at all. We saw him being cut down to size by one customer who quietly told him that he was paying and he wanted his food cooked the way HE wanted it - and he didn't appreciate being shown up by a spoilt brat in the middle of a busy restaurant. Unfortunately for Mr Ladenis - the man was a journalist with one of the brasher UK tabloids and the story was splashed all over the papers a couple of days later.
Maybe I just answered my own question....

indianwells

If he threw an Irish chap at me i'd be more than a bit peeved.

CarolynUK

Whoops - good old British slang strikes again.....

OK ..." would throw a tantrum at customers who dared......"