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While I believe that there are many ethical, moral and health concerns in our excess consumption of meat, I feel that fully abstaining from red meat is a bad idea. Meat is a natural source of complete proteins, and has many essential nutrients that the body cannot synthesize, and some which are not present in vegetables. Red meat and white meat have different nutrient profiles
While I believe that there are many ethical, moral and health concerns in our excess consumption of meat, I feel that fully abstaining from red meat is a bad idea. Meat is a natural source of complete proteins, and has many essential nutrients that the body cannot synthesize, and some which are not present in vegetables. Red meat and white meat have different nutrient profiles
That being said, it doesn't seem if a lot of red meat is necessary. This study found that risks for major depressive disorders / anxiety were double for women who ate less than the Australian guidelines for red meat consumption (which is very low, at 3-4 servings of beef / lamb a week, or between 27-58g of red meat a day).
The same author of that study, Dr Felice Jacka found that women whose diets were higher in vegetables, fruit, fish and wholegrains, with moderate amounts of red meat, were less likely to have depression or anxiety disorders
We should all be getting at LEAST 0.8g / kg of bodyweight (0.36g / pound of body weight if you like to mix units). Active people, especially those trying to put on lean muscle need more. (But not more than 2g / kg bodyweight).
Since we don't need to eat massive amounts of meat, we can treat this meat like a luxury item. However, this does NOT give you permission to splurge on your favorite Matsusaka beef. We should be concerned about saturated fats, as well as polyunsaturated fats (especially omega 3:omega 6 ratio). People eating grass fed meats have shown to have more long chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in the blood than those who didn't.
That being said, eating massive amounts of fats in general is unlikely to be healthy for most of us. There's also some studies that show that eating burnt meat to be carcinogenic.
This recipe calls for trimming off the fat cap, but using the tallow from the fat to fry the steak. This enhances the flavor of your steak, while removing many of the excess calories from the fat cap.
It also is a little less smokey than the usual methods, as the smoking point of tallow is the highest you want to go with the steak without having excessively smokey oil (and over decomposed oil flavors).
We also make a side dish of redwine onions / vinegared onions that complements the flavors of the steak. We use nothing except salt and pepper, as we really want to taste the flavor of the meat. Grassfed steaks have a slightly more intense, beefy flavor than grainfed steaks, and this method helps enhance it.
INGREDIENTS
Grass fed Sirloin steak 200g 7oz
Salt 2g 1/3 tsp
Onion 100g One large onion
Mild Vinegar/ Red wine To taste
EQUIPMENT
Cast Iron Pan
Stove
Tongs / Chopsticks
Kitchen Towels
Instant Read Thermometer
Resting Rack
Knife, Fork
PREPERATION
1) Trim the fat cap from the sirloin. Do not discard.
2) Salt the steak evenly on all sides, 45minutes ahead of time
3) Slice your onions
COOKING
1) Put the trimmed fat cap on the cold cast iron pan
2) Preheat your cast iron pan over a medium low heat, slowly rendering tallow from the fat cap
3) Use your kitchen towel to pat dry the surface of your steak. Any liquid on your steak will steam when it hits the hot pan, lowering the temperature of the pan, and inhibiting the maillard reaction / browning. You want all the heat in your pan to go into browning your steak.
4) Once there is sufficient tallow on the pan, and it starts shimmering (but before it starts to smoke / catch fire), GENTLY place your steak onto the pan, away from you. Turn up the flame to medium large (you want as high a heat as possible, without the flames coming out from under your pan)
5) Count 60 seconds (or start a timer)
6) Flip your steak to a different part of the pan
7) Count 60 seconds (or start a timer). Put some pepper on your steak*.
8) Use your instantread thermometer to check the temperature**.
| Medium Rare | 125-130 °F / 51-54 °C | Pink |
| Medium | 130-140 °F / 54-60 °C | Some Pink |
9) If it reaches your desired temperature, remove the steak. Otherwise return to step 7.
10) Place your steak on a cooling rack, and turn off the fire. Put some pepper on the other side of your steak*, if you only flipped once.
11) Pour away the oil on the pan (dispose of it properly, not down your drain)
12) Place your onions onto your hot pan, using a low flame, panfry your onions for 2 minutes, deglazing your pan.
13) Splash some vinegar / wine onto your pan to help deglaze.
14) Turn the fire up to evaporate some of the liquid, and remove the onions to serve.
*I feel that putting pepper on the steak before it hits the hot pan scorches the pepper and potentially leaves some off-flavors. By adding the pepper mid cooking, the pan has cooled somewhat, and reduces the chance of burning the peppers. You can also opt to pepper your steak while it is cooling on the rack.
**If your pan is hot enough, and your steak is dry, EVEN if you have a thin steak, you can get a good solid sear on the steak, and still have a medium / medium rare steak.
 |
| Aggressive sear, on a relatively thin steak |
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