The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

Jazee

I blame the celebrity chefs on TV that all the other chefs think they have to aspire to. Cooking things quickly, more about presentation than taste.

vivatifosi

I think one of the problems is America. Their medium is less cooked than our medium, and this goes across the categories. DH orders medium in the UK, but medium well in the US. However he has noticed that the American version is creeping in here, depending on where you eat.

Doozergirl

It isn't blood that oozes from a piece of meat, it's the moisture content of it. The rarer you cook it, (that doesn't sound right), the less juice will come out of it as it's able to retain it. If you move to well-done then you've cooked all of the moisture out of it so it becomes bone dry and harder to eat. I wouldn't well done meat unless it had been slow cooked so it's soft.

It's not about presentation, it is about flavour and texture. Pink is cooked but still juicy. There is of course an element of personal preference and some meat should be more cooked than others because of the fat content that needs rendering. And mince, of course.

I think eggs have been declared safe to eat raw for vulnerable groups now.

SingleSue

I have actually found the opposite. I have always had medium rare steak but over the last 10 years have had to ask for rare steak to get what used to be medium rare. The only exception is the recent meal we had for Joe's 20th birthday where they cooked steak to the standards I knew from the 80s and 90s where I could again order medium rare and actually got medium rare.

I didn't eat beef or steak when I was a child because it was so tough, chewy, tasteless and overcooked to death. It was only now ex husband who taught me the joy of eating meat not quite so overcooked. Before I would heave trying to eat beef, now I love it.

However, I draw the line at pink pork, I was another who was told it had to be cooked through (but at the same time, not overcooked so that it was dry).

All the boys love steak, James likes it rarer than me, Josh a little more medium than me (but still with some pinkness) and Joe was the latest to convert to the darkside going from only wanting chicken when we went out to loving steak in the last year after trying a bit of mine when we were on one of our visits to Lincoln pre starting there.

The other two boys are still trying to get their heads around the fact that we no longer have to check to see if a restaurant does chicken burgers before we enter, something we have had to do for pretty much Joe's entire life, although we still have to check for his allergens.

michaels

vivatifosi wrote: »

That horrible sticky runny stuff that looks and feels like a cross between snot and Ghostbusters ectoplasm emerges, and I feel sick.

I'm guessing. you don't...:o.

Doozergirl

No, I don't like the idea of pink pork. I have fairly recently discovered the joy of pork loin, seared and then whacked in the oven for about 25 minutes. Sliced into medallions it's lovely and juicy.

I'm not great at roasting things perfectly, hence I tend to drown pieces of pork and beef in cider/red wine and slow cook for aaaages. Works well but I would love to be able to cook perfectly pink roast beef and I baulk at the cost of a decent joint versus rick of potential mess-up

zagubov

Not interested in undercooked pork or any other white meat.
It's the thought of never enjoying crispy bacon that would make me unable to consider permanent vegetarianism.

LydiaJ

zagubov wrote: »

Not interested in undercooked pork or any other white meat.
It's the thought of never enjoying crispy bacon that would make me unable to consider permanent vegetarianism.

DS said at the time that bacon was the only thing he really missed when he gave up eating mammals. (He still eats both fish and poultry, but is quite strict about checking labels and not eating, for example, things made with pork gelatine.)

zagubov

I can't wait for a future where a spicy flavoursome cornucopia of varied healthy vegetarian foods is widely available. But among mammal meats I'd only really miss mince, pork sausage and bacon.

Doozergirl

zagubov wrote: »

I can't wait for a future where a spicy flavoursome cornucopia of varied healthy vegetarian foods is widely available. But among mammal meats I'd only really miss mince, pork sausage and bacon.

It might be coming. There's some vegan food appearing locally and this town was pretty backward until recently. I had a spectacular vegan buddha bowl this week in a local caf!. Didn't miss meat in it at all, it was delicious.

In that there London one doesn't even need to leave bed to have the cornucopia delivered. It is a true wonder.

I have some weight to lose over the next couple of weeks. I'm going to see if I can give meat a miss. No idea what I'm going to cook though. Could spend two weeks trying to recreate that buddha bowl. Or eating in that caf! every day .