Did you eat Hot Dogs today?Follow

Good, that gives me time to figure out a way to get access to the episodes. I don't have cable (which, of course, means no HBO). And I haven't found a good spot for a livestream yet.

Wouldn't be a problem, but my friends have no self control and I learn more from facebook than I'd like to.

That sounds pretty much like one of the standard sauces they use for the ones in Europe, actually.

I tend to go with a mix of the other two sauces, because I'm a heathen.

So you didn't eat steak as man was meant to


Remember when I suggested that perhaps you just had retarded friends with no idea how to cook a steak? Yeah, we'll call that Exhibit A.

Tzatziki sauce (used on gyros) is made from a yogurt base for whatever it's worth. I can't speak for your strange and Godless donairs.

Oh! So it's steakwars 2011 now?



Did to!



Except that aside from the pan vs grill bit, he's operating on the exact same theory you're using. You do recall that you're basically deliberately choosing to cook steak in a manner invented by guys who didn't have anything other than a super hot boiler pipe to cook on, right? They didn't have a choice. What's your excuse for so horribly doing it wrong? I could choose to commute to work in a horse drawn wagon like my great great great grandparents out of some kind of nostalgia or whatever, but I choose not to.

"Aside from that, how did you enjoy the parade, Mrs. Kennedy?"


Do you believe every cute little urban legend or just ones about meat?

Gee. I didn't know that! Um... Yeah, I did. It's why I made the comment I made.


The "most important, integral part" is that searing doesn't really trap the juices inside the steak. It burns the sides. Some people like this because they are silly people who've learned to like it. Probably by parents who whipped them with clothes hangers if they complained or something.

Again, given that you've never had a properly cooked Pittsburgh rare steak, by your own admission since you always point to your idiot friends who frankly shouldn't be allowed to make a ham sandwich unsupervised from the sound of it, you're not in any position to say what one tastes like.

I fully agree that whatever **** the 'tards you hang out with make is probably crap and inedible to all except dogs and raccoons.

I'm reading a transcript of Alton Brown's myth busting episode. The net loss of the seared steak was higher, which they attribute to the fact that high heat causes the cells to break down, which causes moisture loss.

The problem I'm having with this is that all anyone cares about is the internal moisture level. Naturally, in creating a crust, you have caused all of those cells to lose their moisture. That was kinda the point, no?

So, realistically, a study would need to only examine the internal moisture levels to get a result anyone should care about. I don't see how you could reliably do that, of course, but the point remains.

When discussing a Pittsburgh rare steak, it's not really a matter of searing it to "seal in" the juices during further cooking because there isn't much further cooking. Properly cooked, the outside is quickly pan seared (not completely burnt) and the inside is about as rare as you can get it while escaping a USDA violation. While the result is juicy, if it wasn't I'd wonder where you're getting your pre-dried steaks.

Done properly, you get a mixture of the flavor of the cooked juices and texture of the seared meat against the flavor and coolness of the rare interior. It's a pretty tasty combination. Done improperly, the outside is just crunchy or else not cooked well enough to bring out the flavor. There's a skill to it and you'd never do it on a grill and "searing it to keep in the juices!" isn't the same thing.

Then again, Gbaji comes from a land where their idea of cuisine is to throw avocados on everything and declare it "California style!" so I wouldn't expect him to know **** about how to cook meat beyond the stock basics

I think he wants to watch it as it airs rather than have his friends spoiler for him.

That's about the dumbest article ever. It spends the first two pages debunking arguments that no one makes (strawman anyone?), then spends the final page basically comparing searing to not searing when one cooks meat in an oven (ie: baking).

But that's not the question, is it? The question is: If I'm grilling a steak and only grilling a steak, will I produce a juicier steak by setting the temperature at a modest level based on the thickness of the steak and then cook it slowly and relatively evenly, or by using a pan or other flat surface set at a super hot temperature and "searing" the top and bottom in order to seal the juices in, and then cook it the rest of the way?

The first method results in a evenly cooked steak which depending solely on how long you cook it for can range from well done to rare. The second method results in a hard crust on the outside of the steak, and a soft mushy and nearly raw interior. Unless you cook it longer, in which case you end out with a steak that is burnt on the outside and cooked (and often very dry) on the inside.

Where the article goes wrong, is that both techniques are "dry heating" the outside of the steak. The only real question is whether you believe that somehow by overheating the outside as quickly as possible, you can produce a juicier steak because it "traps in" more moisture. The problem is that even if we accept that it keeps more moisture in than grilling it at a more reasonable temperature (which the article doesn't even attempt to prove at all), any increase in moisture inside the steak is more than offset by the shoe leather consistency outer shell you've created in the process.

Unless you like having to saw through the outside of your steak, the argument about which is juicier is pretty much moot.

Edited, Jul 5th 2011 5:22pm by gbaji