For other uses, see Medium Rare. Doneness is a gauge of how thoroughly cooked a cut of meat is based medium steak its color, juiciness, and internal temperature. Gradations, their descriptions, and their associated temperatures vary regionally, with different cuisines using different cooking procedures and terminology.
For steaks, common gradations include rare, medium rare, medium, medium well, and well done. The table below is from an American reference book and pertains to beef and lamb. The exception is if the meat has been prepared in a sous-vide process, as it will already be at temperature equilibrium. This makes it easier to carve and makes its structure firmer and more resistant to deformation.
Its water-holding capacity also increases and less liquid is lost from the meat during carving. The color change is due to changes in the oxidation of the iron atom of the heme group in the myoglobin protein. Well done cuts, in addition to being brown, are drier than other cuts and contain few or no juices. Archived from the original on 2016-03-24. Internal Color and Tenderness of the Infraspinatus, Longissimus Thoracis, and Semimembranosus are Affected by Cooking Method and Degree of Doneness.
Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Information Service. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. Shoe-Leather Reporting: A history of well-done meat in America. 471 0 0 0 16 9.
It’s never too early to start prepping for barbecue season—so go ahead and bookmark this. Purists assert that a good-quality cut of steak is done ill justice at the hands of an overzealous grill. Contrast that to cheaper cuts like chuck roast, for example, which come to their prime slowly and forgivingly when slowly cooked. Choose the right piece of steak. The quality of your final product depends on your starting ingredients. There’s really only three things in my opinion that make for a good grilled steak: Beef, salt and fire.
We only work with USDA Prime beef, which is the highest grade of beef available, and accounts for only 1. Fat is flavor, so look for beef that looks plump, bright red and has the most marbling. Grain-fed or grain finished beef will have more marbling than a grass-fed beef. If you’re lucky enough to be able to find a butcher that has dry-aged beef,” Prentiss says.
I highly recommend trying anything aged from 15 to 30 days until you become acquainted with the flavor. He’s executive chef at Brennan’s of Houston. If you’re up for trying your hand at aging and are lucky enough to have access to a cryovac, he recommends packing the meat in an airtight seal until it hits at least 23 days. According to chef Dan Sharp of The Meatball Shop in New York, certain types of steaks best lend themselves to grilling. He recommends a skirt steak for a hot grill, whereas a NY strip steak or ribeye is best for a cast-iron pan over a burner. Don’t cook your steaks straight from the fridge.