My ex BIL loved steaks and would only eat them if they were very well done. I believe that if someone showed him a rare steak that he would have literally thrown up at the mere sight of the pink meat.

When they got their steaks and it was very pink, they went inside and microwaved it to their satisfaction. Can you say controlling?

I like mine medium-rare, but not too rare. Some establishments have their own 'code' for medium-rare. I like it pink, not red and cold. Hubby always thought he liked it well-done, he doesn't like pink, and I showed him what medium-well and even medium is like and he likes it.

*****

Oh, my! Nuking really dries it out, but hopefully they enjoyed their steaks despite that.

I'm the same as you as far as exactly where I want my steak. Some cuts are too chewy when rare.

Heck, I'll even throw A-1 to a guest if they want it!

arkansas girl

My ex BIL loved steaks and would only eat them if they were very well done. I believe that if someone showed him a rare steak that he would have literally thrown up at the mere sight of the pink meat.

^^^^

I remember a time when I was grossed out by the blood. No longer!

If you order your steak cooked more than medium in a restaurant, you are going to get the worst piece of beef the chef can find.

So, order the steak rare. When it comes to the table, tell the server you changed your mind, and ask the server to take it back and cook it some more.

dcarch

I'm not on board with ordering a steak underdone (to my liking), then sending it back. That's a worst case scenario and I would never intentionally inflict that on my fellow diners.

Either you like sitting there while the others eat, or you don't mind watching them watch their food go cold.

I am loathe to send food back. Less so if it's just DH and me, but very much more so if I'm dining in a group.

Not that I won't do it, but I do so realizing the negative impact it would have for EVERYONE.

@plllog

I guess I should have said "It starts to taste the same to me".

I don't cook my own steak, and living in Manhattan I'm privy to some great steakhouses. Most of the time there's someone in our group who prefers theirs cooked well, so I've tasted enough cuts to know that to me, the flavor of a piece of well done meat is similar and I just don't enjoy it.

What's your favorite steakhouse or restaurant that does great steaks, Ellie?

@mimipadv

Delmonico's and Peter Luger
The porterhouse at Lugers is TDF.

But, its the one place I get it rare instead of medium-rare because the trays they bring it out on are as hotter than the usual plates restaurants use, so it winds up cooking the steak in no time flat.

There's also a Mortons they opened up near me (yes, i know it's a chain) that do an excellent filet.

mimi, you're close to how I order it. Knock it in the head and send it my way. They laugh and then I say, "a true rare". They seem to get it right when I say it that way, assuring the chef, I understand what it will be when it hits my plate.

Lugers is definitely on my bucket list for steaks, although I really don't like their steak sauce ;-/

Yeah, the couple of times I've tasted it, I remember thinking it was too sweet. But I don't generally use steak sauce.

I find the older I get the more rare I like it.

I think Annie and I are twins separated at birth :-) and like her Ellery, my DH prefers his medium rare to medium.

I remember family barbecues when my grandfather would insist on doing the grilling. Most of us preferred rare to medium rare but he liked his well done. No matter what people said, he would put all the meat on the grill at the same time so the only options were all well done, or his well done and hot, everyone else's rare to medium rare and stone cold. :-(

I remember a number of times when my Father would order his steak rare, but received it as med to well. With a smile on his face, he would politely request the server to ask the chef to"cook it until it was rare". Many a puzzled faces were seen.

I like mine on the rare side of med-rare, but not too rare. Whenever I've eaten well done steak, it ends up tasting like liver to me. (I like liver, but not when it's supposed to taste like steak).

When I was a kid, I guess my mom got around the "blood ick" issue by calling it meat juice. I still do.

I have friends who want their steaks without any pink....well maybe just a little pink is OK. As I have said I want mine blue rare!
One time I had them for dinner, for beef filets. I always have lit candles on the table....and this time I turned the chandeliere low...knowing they would be grossed out by my steak. Well I overcooked my steak...it was very rare but not 'blue" in the center....and larger than I could eat, nd asked the man if he would like part of my steak. He ate it and remarked about how much more tender mine was than his....but because of the dim light he didn't see the color!
A year or more later I was at their house and he was grilling steaks.....and theirs were pink on the inside ( and mine was waaay over done for me!)...I mentioned that I thought they liked well done....they said I had taught them to like it pink in the middle.
I think a lot of those who eat well done steaks could be cured by lower lighting. It's not the taste nor the texture that makes them not like a steak cooked medium, it's the color.

Rare to medium rare depending on the cut and if it is going to be served with any kind of hot sauce (hot in temperature, that is.) I don't want to dip a piece in a hot sauce and end up with meat that is over cooked to my liking.

I have to order mine rare because no one here can grill a medium rare steak; and forget about getting a prime roast medium either. They will call it rare/medium but it arrives well of some sort.

Depends on where we are. If the chef is European, medium-rare doesn't exist there. Ask for medium and then you'll get what we in the US consider medium-rare.

My DH now specifies "medium rare, but more to the rare side, please" and just about every US grill cook handles that perfectly.

We make an exception for true Japanese wagyu. DH does not like meat fat at all; it makes him gag. We learned after the first time to request medium-well to render off the high amount of fat. Suet doesn't start to melt until 160 degrees, I think.

But it's not really a problem; we rarely order Wagyu because I don't personally like Japanese beef. Outside of the nice marbling, the beef is generically mild tasting. I consider it bland and prefer Angus or the Angus/Kobe hybrids. If we're splurging, grain-finished and dry-aged no more than 30 days, LOL!

If we're splurging, grain-finished and dry-aged no more than 30 days, LOL!

******

Sisters from another "mista"!

Linda, I've seen that happen too, with the color of the beef. I think sometimes that's also a learned at home kind of thing--a lot of people think the way they've always had it is the "right" way, and learn much later that they actually prefer it different.

I've tried to eat med-rare to medium beef now and then (usually at least once a year) when it was served to me, and I really can't stand the middle part. I eat the better cooked edges and just hide the ickiness. I've gotten more flexible with age, and can tolerate medium-well, but for me it's both texture and flavor. Underdone meat, to me, is disgustingly flacid and short of flavor. Lighting doesn't change that. :)

Ellie RK, thanks for the clarification. Yes, I do understand that. And good for you for testing it.

It's thought provoking to me when people try to control what other people eat. I'll even provide catsup if that's what you want. However, my ex-MIL insisted that rare beef would give you worms and if she made steak, it was well done and then some. She also insisted that I drink sugar in my tea because that was the "right way" to drink tea. I had water when I was at her house.

Colleen, I'd love to have dinner with you, we'd fit right in together!

I agree about the Wagyu beef, I think it's bland. I also think tenderloin is somewhat bland, the only thing it has going for it is tenderness. I was astounded when I read a poll of professional chefs and the thing that 90% of them thought was overrated was tenderloin, as it had little flavor. I seldom agree with the professionals. (grin)

Angus beef has the best marketing department ever. I don't raise them because I find them to be aggressive fence jumpers, I stay with the docile and somewhat dim Herefords. There is no difference in the final product between those two animals when they are raised in the same environment and manner. I've raised one of each, side by side, and the steaks are identical. Actually, the Hereford was a little better marbled, possibly because it actually spent the time eating instead of looking for a fence to jump over, LOL. The real difference is not in the breed, it's the genetics and carcass condition, some animals marble more nicely and easily, and have different body types My Dad used to tell me to look for an animal that was "broad across the Porterhouse".

I do NOT like beef aged more than 10-14 days, it starts to taste spoiled to me. Of course, I also think olives taste spoiled, so that's probably just me. Fine by Elery, he doesn't have to share his olives with me!

Annie

I love a good tenderloin from time to time, with an excellent sauce. In fact, Costco had a discount on whole Prime tenderloin, and we bought one to portion out and vacuum seal.

It's been delightful to indulge!

In my steak eating experience, when I knew what kind of animal I was eating, the Herefords were just a bigger animal. The T bones were bigger, the rump roasts were bigger....don't know about the fecne jumpign though! LOL!
When my husband was managing the farms, the beef farm favored a Hereford Angus cross....big black cows with a white face. They also felt that the Angus were a bit more delicate, less able to thrive in a harsh winter.

My gripe with beef these days is that the cheaper cuts are now "en vogue" and the prices have gone through the roof. Skirt steak which was once relegated to fajitas is now around $23 a pound. Hanger is as expensive as rib eye.

I guess it's a good thing that people are coming around to recognize the cuts with more flavor, but my wallet doesn't like it.

I agree mimi....and that old free "dog bone" has now come to be a marrow bone with a price to match!

I also agree, mimi. The farmer used to keep cuts like oxtail and marrow bones and short ribs because no one wanted those. Now oxtail is $12 a pound here, and it used to be "junk" beef. Of course, I know a steer only has one tail, but still....

And you hit the other issue I have with bland beef. I don't like sauce, I like beef, and I think good beef should be able to stand on its own without assistance much past salt and pepper. I usually prefer sirloin to other more tender cuts, because it has such a good substantial beef flavor. I have to chew more, but that's why I have teeth!

LindaC, I once saw one of my Angus steers stand still and then just jump a 5 foot fence without a running start! Elery said it should have gone to the cow olympics, LOL. For some reason, Angus just push the fences, or at least any that I've had do. When I started running 9,000 volts through the electric fence, they started jumping over. (sigh) And that's when I stopped borrowing the neighbor's Angus bull and bought The Dude, that big, hairy Scottish Highland. Unfortunately, I wanted to keep his daughters for breeding stock and so he had to go. He weighed a bit over 2,000 pounds when I sold him to a man who wanted to add some new genetics to his small herd, and the guy was astounded, he said he didn't know you could get an animal that big on just grass and hay.

Annie

@lindac92 the bone marrow fiasco drives me nuts. I use to get them for almost nothing at Whole Food for my bulldogs. These days, they're in vogue. Roasted bone marrow is now a trendy appetizer here, and restaurants are charging an outrageous price for you to try something "new."

Hell, I remember the days of sucking out the marrow from roasted chicken bones when I was a kid.. yummy.

Ellie- I remember getting Parm rinds free. Now everyone and their uncle uses them!

We get smoked bones for the dogs from a butcher. $3.50 each.

They're worth it ;-)

ooh, i have to ask for those here. thanks, mimi!

The butcher whispered a secret to me one day (it pays to be sweet to the butcher!): If you want soup bones, they're over $7/lb.! Outrageous! They're supposed to be free, right? If you want dog bones, which are the same danged bones, they're "only" $2. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, so I only put dog bones in the soup nowadays, still grumbling at the price.

Annie, your cows jumping over the moon bring back fond memories of the sheep ranch summers of my teens. There were a few cows, all Scottish Highland, and some calves that were Angus crosses because the guys couldn't figure out when to inseminate the cows and had to resort to the neighbor's bull, who had no such confusion. :) Being small, the calves only hopped, but they sure looked funny, bopping along. :)

For me rare to medium rare. But I seldom order steak out. I did like Peter Lugar's, though (I skipped their sauce). Seasonings for me is salt, pepper, and maybe garlic powder.

When cooking for others, I'll cook their steaks as they prefer, although I always silently apologised to the piece of meat my ex-SIL wanted cooked to shoe leather extremes.

Extra, extra rare. I want it cold in the center. Lots of salt and no steak sauce.

@marilyn_c

When I was in Gijon in northern Spain, everyone there would dip their steaks into salt. They'd cut a piece, dip and eat. Very salty but oohh sooo goood...
Gijon also had astonishingly good steak, even at the local dives, and I'm pretty sure it was always rib eye. But that could be because we were there visiting friends and they always ordered.

A nice finishing salt on steaks is lovely, Ellie.

Medium-rare steak for me! but I rarely eat steak.

I once went to dinner with friends and one of them ordered a steak -- RAW. They refused to serve it to him, saying that "by law" it had to be cooked.

Partymusic, I guess you would not like Steak Tartar or Carpaccio.

pkramer60, I'd just never seen anyone order a steak 'raw' before -- and was surprised they refused him. I don't think it says anything about what I like or not.

I can see how a restaurant would refuse to serve totally raw, not even seared-on-the-outside-steak.

Was that how it was really ordered?

I've been to restaurant that won't cook burgers less than medium, in which case, I choose something else.

Now, getting restaurants to cook pork mid rare to med. (more medium than med. rare) is still difficult!

Have you seen the Mr Bean episode where he orders Steak Tartare in a restaurant?

I like it very rare. I tell them to flick a Bic under it once or twice. I used to say, "Just brand it." Once, they sent me out a steak, uncooked, with just a big old brand mark on it! I ate it. They were so astonished they didn't charge me for it!

Actually, the best way is to heat a cast iron pan fiery hot, toss in a buttered steak (brush butter on the steak before it goes into pan so it will not stick) - cook it a minute or so per side. You will get a quick char for flavor - and have it nice and rare inside.

I've been busy with son's marching band, but am delighted to come back and see the discussion. I'm not surprised it's across the board.

:)

>>My Dad used to tell me to look for an animal that was "broad across the Porterhouse".>>

Annie, that made me chuckle. I love a thick Porterhouse, but when I moved to CA, I found that 99.9% of folks here have absolutely idea of what that is. And when I did find (rarely) one, it was cut 3/4" thick, which barely qualifies as a breakfast steak where I come from. LOL!

If you're traveling in Asia, unless you eat at really expensive places, don't ask for your meat to be rare or even pink. My upper-middle-class in-laws from HK always eat their meat medium-well or well-done. It took me almost a decade to get DH to slowly like his meat rare.

When I asked him why his family prefers all their meat "dried up and dead", he retorted, "Because in HK when you buy meat it's from open-air butchers and there's flies all over it!"

Okay, I conceded they had a good reason for their preferences......

jakkom, I don't know why, but 3/4 inch is the "standard" cut when I have an animal processed. I always ask that the steaks be cut thicker, at least an inch, preferable an inch and a half. "But you get fewer steaks". Yeah, but Elery and I share one, so one is enough!

I realize you get more steaks by cutting more thinly, but the stuff is sold by the pound, so it's all the same anyway.

I do agree that maybe your in-laws in HK have a very good reason for eating well done steak!

Annie

Annie, you remind me of a story of my father's from several decades ago. They were travelling (RV) in the backwoods of a rural part of a relatively poor Southern state. My father was looking for some steaks to grill and didn't see anything that looked right to him, so he asked the butcher (because back then all the stores had butchers) if he could cut him a couple of New Yorks, this thick. The butcher was practically in tears of joy for being able to cut proper steaks the way he'd been taught, rather than the little dribbles that were what was locally required. :)

I'll admit that while I prefer my steaks medium-rare, I prefer my burgers, extremely well done.

I dunno why, but any pink in ground up meat is a pet peeve of mine. I just won't eat it.

I like my burgers med. rare to medium, but, in contrast to steaks, I will still eat and enjoy them well done. Not hockey puck!

It's funny. When I was young it was really rare and preferably really thick, but in my old age I find I like beef brown all the way through, and I'm coming to appreciate the old FL cracker idea of a nice thin steak. I'm always happy if they have the Argentinian cuts in the meat case.

Blue.