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Really well done meat |
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#1 |
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Join Date: Nov 2009
Posts: 2,490
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Really well done meat
I was up at my parents for dinner at the weekend, and we had a roast. Being an irish mother, my mother needs to cook the roast for about three days, and the veg for a similar length of time.
I know everyone has different tastes, but i just dont understand how anyone can enjoy meat thats been cooked for so long that its dried up and leathery. Is anyone else a sole rare/medium eater in a family of well done-rs? |
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#2 |
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Nottingham
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My mum was the same, bless her. For some reason her generation were paranoid about undercooked meat, not sure why the veg had to be boiled to death though.
I was quite shocked first time I saw beef that was pink inside ![]() I've been converted now though - rare steak with al dente veg please
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#3 |
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Join Date: May 2012
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Get the same at the in laws. We actually decided to invite them round for Xmas Dinner rather than go to their house as we couldn't face the overcooked meat again.
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#4 |
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Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Scotland
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I like my meat rare to medium, but do like veg well cooked and soft
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#5 |
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Join Date: Aug 2009
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My family have always liked our beef very rare and other meats cooked so they are only just done (indeed, my late father's favourite dish was steak tartare), as do my in-laws, so no need for us to have to try to choke down bits of leather at meals, thank goodness.
I agree with the usual refrain of 'it's a matter of taste' only up to a certain point. The flavour of the slightly burnt outside bits is delicious, so I do get why those who like well-done meat enjoy that, but I can't understand why anyone would enjoy the texture of a leathery bit of cremated meat. And I think that meat-eaters who are squeamish about 'bloodiness' (it's NOT blood) are hypocritical and rather silly. You're eating a dead animal - why pretend it's not? Same goes for people who freak out about bones. I think Shrike is quite right - it's often a generational thing, harking back to the days when the rearing, slaughtering and butchering of livestock was not heavily regulated, like it is today. I've seen older people do things like rinse meat under a tap (sacrilege, and totally pointless). Another example is people who still think that pork should be utterly cremated, so you can barely swallow it down, rather than cooked so that there is the merest hint of pink, as there should be. |
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#6 |
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It's quite funny when you say that's how it should be when previously for many many generations it shouldn't have been and this rare and nearly raw in some cases meat may just be a fleeting fad in the scheme of things.
Meat had to be cooked safely and veggies too when they came in from the garden filthy and pitted it's only with todays clinically washed veg perfectly round with no flaws we can risk not cooking them until they are properly fully cooked through. |
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#7 |
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I can imagine parents/grandparents of a certain age having conversations along the lines of "Oh god, do we have to go to Wombat's house for dinner? They serve their meat practically raw!".
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#8 |
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Join Date: May 2012
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Quote:
It's quite funny when you say that's how it should be when previously for many many generations it shouldn't have been and this rare and nearly raw in some cases meat may just be a fleeting fad in the scheme of things.
Meat had to be cooked safely and veggies too when they came in from the garden filthy and pitted it's only with todays clinically washed veg perfectly round with no flaws we can risk not cooking them until they are properly fully cooked through. |
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#9 |
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Join Date: May 2005
Location: woking
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But there's a difference between cooked through and being cooked for about an hour longer than that isn't there?
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#10 |
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Quote:
I think Shrike is quite right - it's often a generational thing, harking back to the days when the rearing, slaughtering and butchering of livestock was not heavily regulated, like it is today. I've seen older people do things like rinse meat under a tap (sacrilege, and totally pointless). Another example is people who still think that pork should be utterly cremated, so you can barely swallow it down, rather than cooked so that there is the merest hint of pink, as there should be. All it does is spray germs around the kitchen, as lets face it, running cold water over raw meat isnt going to do much good. Science on big brother washed mince |
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#11 |
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Join Date: Aug 2009
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Quote:
It's quite funny when you say that's how it should be when previously for many many generations it shouldn't have been and this rare and nearly raw in some cases meat may just be a fleeting fad in the scheme of things.
Meat had to be cooked safely and veggies too when they came in from the garden filthy and pitted it's only with todays clinically washed veg perfectly round with no flaws we can risk not cooking them until they are properly fully cooked through. I don't really understand what you are saying about the veggies though. Some people like theirs soft and well-done, yes, but I've never heard anything about health risks involved with eating raw vegetables or fruit (other than things like rhubarb and potatoes, that are harmful when eaten raw). Don't we all eat some raw vegetables - carrots, salad leaves, cucumbers etc? Other than possible pesticides, what is this harmful 'filth' that comes (or used to come) on vegetables from the garden? The 'pitts' and 'flaws' in vegetables are not flaws at all - that's the natural state of naturally grown vegetables. There is nothing sinister or harmful about that. |
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#12 |
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Obviously nothing wrong with pits and flaws I prefer my veg to look natural I wasn't saying there was anything wrong with them but you can't clean them as antiseptically as they do the veg these days in supermarkets.
And unless you garden in a cat or fox free area I would suggest there are many reasons to cook stuff extremely well. |
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#13 |
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Quote:
Obviously nothing wrong with pits and flaws I prefer my veg to look natural I wasn't saying there was anything wrong with them but you can't clean them as antiseptically as they do the veg these days in supermarkets.
And unless you garden in a cat or fox free area I would suggest there are many reasons to cook stuff extremely well. I guess the bottom line is: if you like your meat and vegetables well-done, fine, but there is no real need to cook like this these days. |
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#14 |
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Interesting thread
and it has helped to understand why my Mum always cremated the meat too (she still does) - it was so dry and tough and then she would save some of the roast for Mondays tea to be eaten cold by which time it was tougher than leather, she still washes raw meat to this day. I must say though to her credit she does make the best slow cooked braised steak I have ever eaten.In my house we prefer meat just cooked so that it is still moist and the vegetables definitely al dante. |
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#15 |
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Join Date: Oct 2008
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Quote:
And unless you garden in a cat or fox free area I would suggest there are many reasons to cook stuff extremely well.
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#16 |
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Quote:
I can imagine parents/grandparents of a certain age having conversations along the lines of "Oh god, do we have to go to Wombat's house for dinner? They serve their meat practically raw!".
Even when we're watching cookery programmes, she'll say in disgust "send it back, it's not even cooked!".
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#17 |
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Quote:
My mum would still wash a turkey under the cold tap on xmas eve.
All it does is spray germs around the kitchen, as lets face it, running cold water over raw meat isnt going to do much good. Science on big brother washed mince He also insisted on cutting about a third of the chicken off and chucking it out as he didn't want to eat it's arse. I know he got his nickname as he liked science at school, but I can only assume it was physics and chemistry - not biology
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#18 |
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Quote:
Of course but what you seem to consider cooked through would not be cooked enough for my meat eaters they like theirs very well done, we are also fans of properly cooked veggies (soft).
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#19 |
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Join Date: Aug 2009
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I tend to use a meat thermometer when checking the meat is cooked, although i prefer meat medium to well done, Pork & Poultry has to be cooked well done. I do my veg just as it goes soft, as you get the flavour from the veg then, i do remember having veg when it was cooked to a mush no flavour whatsoever.
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#20 |
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If making steak and potatoes, my mother would put the steak on before the potaoes
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#21 |
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Join Date: Jul 2009
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modern food preparation is hardly safe, is it.
we wash most things before use. All fruit and veg for instance. We would certainly wash chickens, although not joints of meat. And despite observations about pork, we cook ours properly. Heston B managed to poison a lot of his diners with the contaminated shellfish, did he not. Leviticus properly has it right. I eat prawns and the like, but rarely touch other shellfish. |
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#22 |
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Join Date: May 2005
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When I visit my parents for the weekend I always have to come up with an excuse to leave early on a Sunday morning to avoid stopping for dinner. The meat is cremated and the veg boiled for hours. The last time I was there I offered to take them to a local carvery but they refused because they said they had been before and the food was served "half raw".
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#23 |
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Join Date: May 2012
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Quote:
modern food preparation is hardly safe, is it.
we wash most things before use. All fruit and veg for instance. We would certainly wash chickens, although not joints of meat. And despite observations about pork, we cook ours properly. Heston B managed to poison a lot of his diners with the contaminated shellfish, did he not. Leviticus properly has it right. I eat prawns and the like, but rarely touch other shellfish. |
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#24 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Aug 2009
Posts: 5,111
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Quote:
modern food preparation is hardly safe, is it.
we wash most things before use. All fruit and veg for instance. We would certainly wash chickens, although not joints of meat. And despite observations about pork, we cook ours properly. Heston B managed to poison a lot of his diners with the contaminated shellfish, did he not. Leviticus properly has it right. I eat prawns and the like, but rarely touch other shellfish. |
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#25 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: May 2012
Posts: 21,738
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Quote:
Why do you wash chicken, but not other joints of meat? It's the heat that kills bacteria. Running something under the tap doesn't kill any surface germs at all.
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Even when we're watching cookery programmes, she'll say in disgust "send it back, it's not even cooked!".