Rare

  • Cook steaks to 120 F, 160 or 170 , not to bloody, red or pink

    Posted: July 1st, 2011 - 8:29am by Doug Powell

    Chef Ramsey’s kitchen rage is topped only by Donald Trump’s hair, rants, and famous line “you are fired.”

    The final challenge on Ramsey’s latest show was to determine which of two chefs stays one more week by cooking three steaks each, one rare, one medium, and one well done. As one of the chefs uses a tip sensitive digital thermometer to check temperatures, Chef Graham Elliot comments something along these lines – every time he uses the thermometer, he lets those juices flow out.

    According to the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, medium steaks should be cooked to an internal temperature of 160º F, well done 170º F and rare is not listed, but it’s usually around 120º-125º F (no one really knows). Four out of the six steaks looked pretty much the same (right, exactly as shown), so we’ll never know what the temperatures were.

    When I ask for my steak to be rare, get it to at least 120º F and don’t even think about using the cheek or hand tests.

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    food safety, Gordon Ramsey, rare, steak, Temperature, thermometer
  • I’ll take my hamburger at 160F, verified with a thermometer

    Posted: September 29th, 2010 - 6:41am by Doug Powell

    Food safety has never been Mark Bittman’s strong point. But food porn triumphs, so who cares if a few people barf.

    In the on-going saga of demonstrating that most so-called chefs are food safety morons, Bittman, a columnist with the N.Y. Times who apparently has a new book out, blogged about his experience ordering a burger in Toronto (that’s in Canada) the other night night, where he said to the staff,

    “I begged the waitress for a really rare burger and she said, “When you ask for rare they make it medium rare,” and I said, "I know, that’s how it often is, and though I'd prefer it rare I don’t mind it medium rare, but if it's medium I'm going to be unhappy," and she said, "Then you’ll be very happy." And it came out well done. And I wasn't unhappy at all, I just didn't eat much of it. I ate fries and roasted beets."

    Bittman has also said in the past that "if you grind your own beef, you can make a mixture and taste it raw," adding that, "To reassure the queasy, there’s little difference, safety-wise, between raw beef and rare beef: salmonella is killed at 160 degrees, and rare beef is cooked to 125 degrees."

    This is food safety idiocracy. Any food safety advice in Bittman’s book should be disregarded as fantasy.

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    Hamburger, Mark Bittman, rare, thermometer
  • Make my turkey burger rare – just kidding

    Posted: March 20th, 2010 - 7:51am by Doug Powell

    A long-time barfblog.com reader -- first-time commenter -- writes in with the following restaurant experience from Olathe, Kansas:

    I literally just got home from one of my favorite casual dining restaurants here in Olathe. I ordered my favorite sandwich -- the Avocado Turkey Burger. The server took my order first as my girlfriend was still deciding what to order. She ordered a different turkey burger (copy cat). As the server wrote her order down I jokingly called my girlfriend a "Copy Cat" out loud at the table for ordering the same (almost the same) sandwich. So to be different, I told the server "Hey, can I get my turkey burger medium rare"....she said "sure no problem sir", took her pad back out, wrote it down and walked off. I called her back to the table to explain I was just joking and that turkey had to be cooked "all the way."

    She just stared at me, then the light went off in her head...."oh, ya, I knew that."

    I was afraid to eat...but I did and it was still tasty as usual.

    On the drive home all I could think about was this could totally have been a story I read on barfblog.com with some picture of bloody rare turkey or something -- or not.

    Ask your server to stick it in.

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    burger, kansas, rare, thermometer, Turkey