Text 31764, 157 rader
Skriven 2012-12-13 22:13:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av JIM WELLER
Ärende: red meat 703
====================
 JW> beef medium rare, pink with a red centre.
 ML> That's quite acceptable
 JW> It's my favourite degree of doneness, if it's cooked at all.

The red center is the key.

 JW> We should all get what we ask for, all the time. But I find I have to
 JW> ask for rare to get a medium rare. If I actually get a medium or
 JW> worse I am tempted to send it back but

I've done it and will do it again.

 JW> I know they'll send back something super blue rare, with a sneer

After all, the gesture is not costing them anything!

That's what we should do. We go out to a restaurant, and I
order something that both of us enjoy, oh, walleye, and you
order a rare steak, and the rareness of the steak determines
the next course of action:

- rare or medium-rare, fine
- medium or worse, send it back:
    - it comes back rare or medium-rare, fine
    - it comes back super blue, we switch plates
    - it comes back medium or worse, we leave.

 JW> , as if daring me to order a third time.

Yeah. I once ordered a rare veal chop at Encounter (one of the
news sites did a feature on the best places in the world for
airport food, and this is one; I've eaten at half of them and
disagree on most), and it came medium-well, so I sent it back,
and what I ended up with was a gigantic chop just barely seared
but completely cold raw in the middle. I thought about telling
them to put it on again for a minute a side (it was 2" thick if
a millimeter) but decided to eat the outside part, which was
about a pound of quite good food; I was left with half a pound
of raw veal, which I proceeded to hack up a little so they
couldn't reuse it for cutlet or the staff meal. I considered
having them recook the remains for me, but I had a plane to catch.

 Actually I prefer doing steaks at home and ordering
 JW> other things while I'm out. 

... I don't have access to that 1000F broiler, and I do like a
firm very dark brown outside and a raw or near-raw middle.

I've cooked at 4 different places in the last 3 weeks, and
one happened to have a malfunctioning broiler that was heating
extra hot, so I made some perfect steaks - my friend's textbook
rare with an almost crisp though not burnt crust, mine purple
with a dark brown crust. Nuked potato and sweet potato finished
on the grill, sauteed mushrooms, Norton Malbec. Life was good.

 JW> I very rarely get that, even in the cheapest chain store bulk buy.
 ML> You don't have after-school high-schoolers manning the bandsaw.
 JW> True. Worker's Compensation or the Dept of Labour or somebody has
 JW> decreed it is a dangerous job, just like construction or working in
 JW> a lumber mill, so one must be at least 18 years old to operate the
 JW> equipment.

I think some of our states have similar safeguards, but who
pays attention to them?

 ML> Here it drives me up the wall to see weird fluctuations
 ML> that range 2 or 3 times a base price, within the space of
 ML> a week
 JW> Flyer specials here might be 15-25% off the regular price which
 JW> tends to be fairly stable except for seasonal variation or a real
 JW> change in underlying commodity prices.

We often have buy-one-get-one-free sales and occasionally
buy-one-get-two-free. More scandalous are the specials where
the regular price is say $10/lb, but with the club card you
save 60%, and it's only $4/lb, and this happens every few
weeks. I don't shop all that often any more, but I've seen
it again and again, not always the same stuff, so my trait of
seldom if ever focusing on gotta gotta is quite adaptive.

 JW> unless I store it outdoors. Oh, that reminds me, Roslind came home
 JW> today with a large hamper full of fish and one medium sized chunk of

I am looking forward. Please thank her heartily for me. And here
you get some weird outlander willing to trade expensive whiskey
for bushmeat.

 JW> seal meat. And it's sitting on the back deck; I hope you get here
 JW> before the ravens and coyotes figure out how to pry off the lid.

Throw a few pots of cold water on it and make a crust. Of course
then we won't be able to pry off the lid either.

Oven-Roasted Spiced Beef
cat: main
servings: 10

For the beef
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tb brown sugar
2 ts salt
1 ts freshly ground black pepper
1 ts dried thyme
1/2 ts ground mace
1/2 ts ground allspice
1/4 ts ground cloves
2 beef tri-tip roasts, 1 3/4 lb each
- (may substitute 3 1/2 lb other boneless
- roast such as rib-eye, top loin, rump
- roast, or top sirloin roast
4 bay leaves, broken in half
For the sauce
1 1/2 c beef stock or broth
2 ts dried thyme
2 Tb stone-ground mustard
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the beef: Combine the garlic, sugar, salt,
pepper, thyme, mace, allspice and cloves. Rub
the spice mixture over the 2 roasts to coat.
Press the bay leaves onto the top of the meat.
Cover and refrigerate for at least 8 hr.

Preheat the oven to 450F.

Place a wire rack in a roasting pan slightly
larger than the roasts. Remove and discard the
bay leaves. Transfer the meat to the wire rack,
fat-side up. Roast to the desired degree of
doneness, about 45 min for medium, or when the
meat registers 145 degrees, keeping in mind
that the temperature at the center of the meat
will continue to rise after the roast is removed
from the oven. Transfer the meat to a cutting
board; let rest for 10 min before carving.

For the sauce: While the meat rests, place the
roasting pan over medium-high heat. Add the
stock or broth and thyme to the juices in the
pan and bring the mixture to a boil. Cook,
stirring with a wooden spoon to scrape the
bottom of the pan, until the liquid is reduced
to about 1/2 c. Reduce the heat to low, add the
mustard, and stir until incorporated. Season
with salt and pepper. Remove the pan from heat.

To serve, thinly slice the meat across the
grain. Pour any juices that accumulate on the
cutting board into the sauce and stir to combine.
Serve warm with the sauce on the side.

Terri Pischoff Wuerthner
Washington Post, March 14, 2001

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