175 lines
5.1 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
175 lines
5.1 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
foodanddrink
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8048513
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# The Kitchen Thinker: Steak ageing
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## Bee Wilson discovers that extreme ageing is the secret to the perfect
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steak.
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![The Perfect Stake][1]
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[![Bee Wilson][2]][3]
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By [Bee Wilson][4] 7:00AM BST 19 Oct 2010
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[Follow Bee Wilson on Twitter][5]
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[Comments][6]
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You've heard the phrase 'watching paint dry'. Well, now, there is a London
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restaurant - [Goodman's City][7] on Old Jewry, near Bank - where you can pay
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good money to watch steak ageing. The best table looks on to a big glass-
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walled dry-ageing room. Here the clientele - lots of bankers - can gaze on
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vast cuts of T-bone as they slowly, ever so slowly, turn from moist red to dry
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dark burgundy in the cold air.
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The funny thing is that it isn't boring. At least I don't think so. The
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various cuts of beef (American, Irish, Scottish and English) look like a
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still-life painting. The freshest pieces are scarlet. The oldest are
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practically black, with a hard waxy exterior, like parma ham (this outer edge
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gets trimmed off before cooking). This is what Goodman's executive chef, John
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Cadieux, refers to as 'extreme ageing'. The idea is that you age the meat to
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such an extent it is virtually cured. Most of Goodman's meat is aged for 21
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days, but Cadieux says he has 'a few customers' who specially ask for a piece
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to be aged as far as it can go without going off.
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Cadieux, a Canadian who has been cooking at the original Goodman's in Mayfair
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since it opened two years ago, knows more about steak than anyone I have ever
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met. He can name every muscle in a beef carcass. He reads the lines of
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marbling in a rib-eye like a map. I had always thought that you shouldn't move
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steaks around in the pan too much, but Cadieux taught me different. 'Turn and
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turn' is his motto, for maximum browning. Most of all, Cadieux believes that a
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good steak is an aged steak.
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Ageing sounds like a foodie fetish, but there is logic behind it. Harold
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McGee, the guru of food science, writes that 'like cheese and wine, meat
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benefits from a certain period of ageing'. When beef is exposed to dry cold
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air it loses moisture (at Goodman's, they pump the air with Himalayan rock
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salt, to dry it out). This concentrates the flavour to a deep Marmite
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beefiness, quite unlike fresh wet supermarket steak. At the same time, enzymes
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in the meat start to weaken the collagen in the connective tissue, making the
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steak more tender.
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People talk about steaks that are like butter. I thought this was OTT until I
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tasted the American fillet at Goodman's City. It practically dissolved on the
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tongue, but also had a firmness lacking in normal fillet, because of the
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ageing. This kind of luxury doesn't come cheap. The head chef at Goodman's
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City, Olly Bird, comments wryly that 'we must be one of the only restaurants
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where the fillet is the cheapest cut'. A 250g Scottish grass-fed fillet is
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£25, including sauce (bearnaise or pepper) but not chips or vegetables. An
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American porterhouse or Irish rib-eye might set you back £30 to £50.
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## Related Articles
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* [How to cook the perfect steak][8]
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23 Sep 2010
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* [How to cook perfect steak][9]
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23 Sep 2010
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* [Sauce: wines to go with steak][10]
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19 Jun 2009
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Ageing meat is uneconomical, because as the meat loses moisture, it loses
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weight. But, oh, it's good. 'We ruin people for other steaks,' says Cadieux,
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and I fear he may be right. We try an extreme-aged Scottish rib-eye, cooked,
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like all Goodman's steaks, on a scorching charcoal oven-grill. The marbled fat
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tastes like cheddar cheese. The meat resembles the sticky umami bits left in
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the pan from a Sunday roast. Then we look at the plate. No bloody juices. This
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is the wonder of ageing. The steak is juicy, but the plate is bone-dry.
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_Follow Bee Wilson on twitter_ [@KitchenBee][5]
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[X][11] Share & bookmark
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Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter
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Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz
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[What are these?][12]
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* Share: [Share][11] [ ][13] [ ][14]
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[Tweet][15]
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/8048513/The-Kitchen-Thinker-Steak-
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ageing.html
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Telegraph
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## [Food and Drink][16]
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* ### [Lifestyle »][17]
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* ### [Bee Wilson »][18]
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[![Disparity by Christopher Boffoli: everyday scenes created using food and
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toy figures][19] ][20]
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### [Tiny people in your food][20]
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[![Pancake Day recipe: cinnamon, banana and chocolate crepes, Five Minute
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Food][21] ][22]
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### [Pancake Day: how to make perfect crepes][22]
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[![Alan Sailer's high-speed pictures of the moment pellets fired from an air
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gun hit objects][23] ][24]
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### [Faster than a bullet][24]
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[![][25] ][26]
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### [Meals on your fingers][26]
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[X][11] Share & bookmark
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Delicious Facebook Google Messenger Reddit Twitter
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Digg Fark LinkedIn Google Buzz StumbleUpon Y! Buzz
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[What are these?][12]
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Share:
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* [ ][11]
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* [ ][13]
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* [ ][14]
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* [Tweet][15]
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* Advertisement
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![][27]
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telegraphuk
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Please enable JavaScript to view the [comments powered by Disqus.][28] [blog
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comments powered by Disqus][29]
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[![wineshop_v2][30]][31]
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Advertisement
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sponsored features
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Loading
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Wine Offers
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* [OFFERS][32]
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* [RED WINE][33]
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* [WHITE WINE][34]
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