Ko and Others: Cooking Beef

Just came accross one of those little “pearls” in one of the mags.


They state that The New England Journal of Medicine recently reported on a cooking tactic to eliminate 43% of the beef’s fat, 1/2 of the cholesterol and actually improve the ratio of healthy to saturated fat. This is done by 1)Heating the raw steak in vegetable oil for 2-3 minutes and 2)Rinsing the meat in boiling water prior to cooking.


I can’t find the article with both a Journal or Medline search. If any of you guys are aware of the article (or of the technique) and could elaborate more, this could be a pretty good tid-bit to have in the “Muscle Kitchen!”


THANKS!

It may work, but what a terrible thing to do to a piece of meat.

LOL, brother!!! :)—!!!


I thought that once you seasoned the meat and cooked it the way you want, taste would be preserved. (I wish we could get that article. The article I read this from was one of those 3-inch square, quick “blurbs” you see in the mags…).

You will retain some if you have marinated it, but if you are in a hurry and simply season it , you will wash away most of the flavor.

I agree with ko. Furthermore, most vegetable oils are pretty crappy from a nutritional standpoint, and heating them in that manner will make things worse. If you want beef with a better fatty acid profile, I would highly recommend grass fed beef. There are several suppliers on the web. Just use google.

Can’t verify this, but I’ve heard if you marinate your steak in a mixture of red wine and olive oil, that the saturates somehow are drawn out and replaced with the mono’s in the olive oil. Sounds a bit rediculous, but I’d like to run it by to see if anyone knows anything about this technique.

King; I’m getting the impression from ko and others that the key to any meat (other than it’s inherent quality) is in the marinating.


I’m curious also about some marinating “pearls”.


Chris: Agree…veggie oils and trans fats are a no-no…and the inherent quality (i.e.grass fed) may be the key…

ko, I know its kinda off the subject, but what do you mix with your hamburgers before you cook them? And do you do the same for most steaks? Dale’s sauce just isnt getting it done for me anymore! Thanks a ton.

A great marinade for beef: olive oil, beer, mixture of sea salt, cumin, garlic powder, onion powder cayenne(optional) throw it all together and in one hour even the shittiest, driest piece of beef will taste good.

Hi fellow Carnivors… I don’t see why any of you have such an issue with the good ol’beef. Grill it, fry it, broil it, do watever it takes to cook it the way you like. I have been reading more info on Beef lately and I’ve never heard of anything that changes the type of oil on the meat. There is little you can do to change the nutritional value of it.

Has anyone tried a quality steak without anything on it? The only reason restaurants season and marinate their steaks is to cover the fact that they buy shitty meat. This may not matter as much for people who like their steaks well done. I always have mine rare. Cooked on a foreman style grill without even a cooking spray. (Ok, I add salt before eating, but that’s it.)

Marinating serves two purposes, to infuse flavor, and to tenderize.Every marinade should have three components, fat (olive oil,etc), acid (fruit juice, wine, vinegar), and seasonings. The fat wil enhance the flavor, and add moisture the meat, while the acid will break down the connective tisues, that make the meat tough. The marinade that Horace gave is actually one that I use every now and again, except I like to add lime juice (acid), and prefer fresh garlic, and onion (personal preference, I’m good with a knife so it takes little time for me).

Herbs and spices are your friend, if you do not have one go out and buy yourself a spice rack, one with all the basic herbs and spcies (the quality is not the best, but its better than nothing). Cajun spice is a good choice for burgers. just mix it in. An Italian seasoning mix is another good choice.I treat ground beef just like treat ground pork, like sausage, so find some sausage recipes and use them.

I agree with you completely, but the reason good quality steaks, taste so good and are so tender, is becase the have double the fat, sometimes triple. a good quality flank steak, eye of round will be tough no matter what grade you get, so you have to take steps to make it better for grilling.

Somewhere on T-Mag recently there was an article that said grass fed beef contains a different fat profile than grain fed beef. I couldn’t find any beef labelled “grass fed” so I tried some “organic” ground beef from Whole Foods. For some reason, the organic beef seems to cook up a little differently from regular beef of the same fat content. The outside seems to sear up better and the inside seems to cook more evenly. The taste is a little different too, but that could be a variation in seasonings. Has anybody else noticed a difference with organic beef?