How To Serve Up The PERFECT Steak!

      

By Rocco 'Boss Hog' Loosbrock

One of the great benefits of owning and running a popular, monthly gourmet food club, such as our "Coastal Vineyards Monthly Prime Steak Club," is the fact that I get the opportunity to spend a whole lot of time sitting down and talking "steak" with some of the most noted and respected experts on the subject.

That places me in a uniquely awesome position to then turn right around share with you, the rarely revealed, valuable insider information that these experts, from renowned and respected beef producers, butchers and Master Chefs, pass along to me during our conversations.

I definitely think that you will find this information about steak pretty helpful and downright fascinating!

Fact: Americans still love red meat, especially their beef and eat an average of 67 pounds of it per year according to the latest government figures. For all the totally lame attempts to drive people to eat less beef and more chicken and fish over the last 10 years, the facts show no decrease at all in the average American's consumption of beef over the past decade. We love our steak and burgers!

Fact: If you want your steak to be juicy and tender when served, you want lots marbling and little white flecks of fat in your steak. These flecks melt away during the cooking process, adding to the meat's over-all flavor.

Fact: You want your steak to have a consistent, even thickness throughout the cut of the meat. If it's thinner in some parts and thicker in others, your steak will cook unevenly and the thinner areas will likely burn. If you're buying more than one steak, find consistent, professional cuts that are all extremely close in size so that they finish cooking at approximately the same time.

Fact: Don't waste your time and energy on cuts that are less than an inch thick, it will cook up tough and flavorless and be a huge disappointment. That's were store bought steaks will get you!

Fact: Never trim the fat off of a steak. The fat will help keep the steak moist and hold its shape during cooking as well as enhances the meat's natural flavor. If you want to trim off any excess fat after the steak is cooked, that's completely up to you!

Fact: Rib and Loin = Good, tender, juicy, flavorful steak. Chuck and Round = low quality, tough, flavorless, steaks that will desperately need to be utterly, enthusiastically marinated for long periods of time to try to force a little flavor and plumpness into the overly muscular, stringy meat. Yuck!

Fact: The absolute best steaks you can get without having them expensively shipped all the way over to you from Japan are" Prime Angus" cuts. Prime Angus is so deliciously tender and flavorful; I actually know people who truly prefer the flavor and texture to the highly expensive "Kobe Beef "coming over to us from Japan.

Fact: Watch out for unusual or fancy brand names Usually these clever names are nothing more than marketing scams to trick you into buying sadly inferior steaks.

Fact: Beware of "Enhanced" beef, which means the steak has been injected with artificial additives such as various preservatives to artificially tenderize, color, add flavor, plump up /moisturize and preserve the steak from falling apart, showing it's true color or smell.

Signing off at Pigging out! Rocco "Boss Hog" Loosbrock

Rocco owns and runs a Bacon of the Month Club called The Bacon Freak Bacon is Meat Candy Club as well as a Wine Club called the Coastal Vineyard Wine Club