Abrignac wrote:Funny you mention that. Many, many years who I was a Sous Chef in a restaurant owned by a fairly well know Cajun chef. One night his idiot brother came in and ordered a ribeye well done. So I cooked him a well done ribeye. He sent it back wanting some sauce for his "dry azz" hunk of meat.
I'm like you, I like a nice char on the outside and cold & red on the inside.
It got to the point where I would not order steak because I could NOT get the waitress to understand just how rare I wanted it. My usual shpeel went something like this . . .
"
And how would you like that cooked, sir ?"
"I want it RARE, with a capital R. I want to see blood on my plate when I cut it. I mean, I want it to moo when I stick a fork in it. I want it charred on the outside and red, NOT PINK, on the inside. Tell the chef that if he can't cook it this way, then don't bother putting it on the grill, because I'm only gonna send it back. Okay ?"( This is where my wife would usually say . . ."Tell the chef to just hold it over a Bic lighter for 30 seconds per side." )
More times than not, I would have to send it back.
Side note . . .
My best friend invited my wife and I to a BBQ at his house a few years ago. He told me that he bought some Porterhouses from Omaha Steaks. He even mentioned that he paid $25 per steak. I have had OS steaks in the past and they are REALLY top notch, so naturally , I accepted his invitation.
After about 30 minutes of chit chat, he fires up the grill and goes inside to get the steaks.
When he comes out, he has 4 beautiful Porterhouses, about 10 - 12 inches in diameter.
THEY WERE **** FROZEN !
We had a rather heated discussion about this, and I told him not to bother putting my or Sally's steak on the grill because we would not eat them as they would only be ruined, and I would hate to see such a beautiful piece of meat wasted.
We wound up going home, (at HIS request), and cooking our own meal.