By Se Ri Lee '19
Last year, my family and I went to Moulin, a French fine dining restaurant, for dinner. The food was exceptional. It was like eating nine pieces of meticulous artwork: one delicate three-piece Amuse-Bouche, three finely decorated Entree dishes, one Poisson, one Plat, one Fromage, one Dessert, and one Les Petit fours with tea. The most impressive out of all was the calamari entree, a dish that reminded my dad and me of ravioli. Two round flesh of squid stuffed with squid intestines and pumpkin puree, all drenched in basil pesto and olive oil and topped with roasted pistachios. That is what you’d call perfection.
I could rant on for days about each dish that was presented throughout the course of the meal, but for now, I will focus on the seventh dish, the main dish: the Filet de Veau (veal fillet.) Ironically, it was my least favorite dish of the night.
I was hoping to see the veal sizzle and the juice inside to spill out the moment I cut into it. Instead, what I chewed on was a lukewarm piece of meat. Submissive, I think, is what my dad called it.
Most, if not all, fine dining restaurants rest their meat before serving it. From their perspective, I can understand why. If the meat isn’t rested, the juice inside would spill out the moment it is cut in half. As an owner chef, you wouldn’t want to see meat juice splattering all over your artwork.
But imagine eating your steak elsewhere, in a place less formal and less expensive. Wouldn’t you want to eat a piece of meat that is sizzling and soft and served right out of the pan?
Frankly, if I were given the option to eat either Korean barbecue (best example of meat with zero resting time) or a steak rested for five minutes, I would choose the former.
You may find it quite ridiculous that there are people (me included) debating about this. After all, it’s just a piece of steak. But for some like my dad and me, a rested steak and an unrested one are two ends of a spectrum.
The debate has been ongoing, and it’s been going on not only between resting proponents and opponents but also among proponents themselves. These proponents disagree on what actually happens during the five to ten minutes of resting.
Here’s what one group of resting theorists claim: the water (juice) inside the meat moves toward the center as the meat is cooked because the “cells” on the surface contract, squeezing the juices to the center, where the “cells” are bigger. (They say this occurs because the temperature at the surface increases before the temperature at the center does.) Because the juices are concentrated at the center of the steak, they will spill out right onto the plate if the steak is not rested. With five to six minutes of resting, however, the surface of the steak will cool down and the “cells” will somehow expand back to its original shape. Then, the water (juice) will be distributed evenly throughout the steak.
The second time I read this, I felt something was off with their logic. Meat, as well as the cells building it, is made of proteins, and proteins denature once heated. In other words, once heat is applied to the protein molecules, they will not change back to their original shape even when they are cooled down to initial temperature. Say you boiled an egg, approximately 12 % of which is protein. No matter what you do to it--put it in the freezer, in the fridge, or on your kitchen table--a hard-boiled egg will remain a hard-boiled egg. It will not melt back into its original shape, as ice cream does. Moreover, animal cells do not have vacuoles as plant cells do. If almost all the water move toward the center cells, those cells will burst. So, it’s almost impossible for the “cells” of the steak to expand back to its original shape and size because they would have deformed in the first place.
But perhaps it’s possible that the muscle fibers relaxed a little bit when the steak was resting, as another group of resting theorists claim. These resting proponents say that it’s impossible for the juice to concentrate in a specific area of the steak because the amount of liquid the center can hold is limited. (To explain this, they compared a piece of meat to a bundle of straws filled with water. No matter how much the edge of the straws are pinched, it’s impossible for more water to move to the center of the straws.) Instead, they say what really happens is the juices would have moved to the surfaces of the steak and evaporate, since the center, whose temperature is rising, would have contracted anyway. Although a piece of cooked meat contains less water than a raw one, the center of cooked meat still holds onto some juice since the muscle fibers would not have contracted as much as the ones at the surface. As the muscle fibers relax as the steak rests, the juice remaining in the meat will distribute evenly across the steak. Consumers will avoid the possibility of seeing juice from the center bursting out onto their plate.
Although this group of resting theorists may be right in their logic, they’re missing a key point. In the first few minutes of resting, the heat from the surface of the steak would be transferred to the rest of the steak, causing the temperature of the steak to rise to about 135 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. At this temperature range, collagen usually gelatinizes, squeezing the muscle fibers and thereby pushing out more water from the steak. After ten minutes, your steak will be tougher, less juicier, and--most disappointingly--lukewarm. In addition, the water, which these resting proponents are equating as all the juice in the steak, is not the only factor that causes steak to be juicy. In fact, there are numerous other factors, such as collagen, storage method, age, and seasonings, that contribute to the juiciness of steak.
I don’t believe in the so-called "resting theory." The costs of resting are much greater and much more obvious, the benefits small and unsubstantiated.
The next time you order steak at a restaurant--rib eye, T-bone, or whatever it is that is your favorite--make sure to ask whether it will be rested or not rested. You now know the “proper” way to eat steak.
Sources http://www.seriouseats.com/2009/12/how-to-have-juicy-meats-steaks-the-food-lab-the-importance-of-resting-grilling.html https://www.thespruce.com/the-secret-to-a-juicy-steak-995233 http://amazingribs.com/tips_and_technique/mythbusting_resting_meat.html http://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/grilling-myths-dont-let-meat-rest-after-cooking-article
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