Umm ... never heard of this before graeme!  I'll be watching this thread with interest!  Wonder if we have any butchers in the Cafe? 

Yes, I do remember aged steaks. You can usually get nice ones marked down by half early in the week at "No Frills".   Cook it the same day though. 

I'm told the English allow game birds to rot quite thoroughly before cooking. And I once ate stewing beef crawling with maggots. I had spent the afternoon walking with the meat in my pack as I travelled a good ten miles on a trail. The prospect of a round trip of twenty miles just to buy some meat wasn't appealing. So I scraped off the maggots, and ate it. It was okay.

But blue steaks were quality stuff, really tender and delicious.

Note to self - no dining with graeme on long hikes!  Or maybe even short ones! 

I think good butchers do age all their beef ... but in a carefully controlled environment ... not in a backpack!   Well aged stuff tends to be more expensive I think.

 Hi Graeme,

I have never heard blue steak referred to as an aging process.

I have always heard the term blue steak referred to as doneness.  It is somewhere between raw and rare.

I know that the Keg restaurants serve a blue steak.  I've never had one cooked that lightly.  It appears to be seared (cooked on the outside but not on the inside).

Wikipedia tells me that a blue steak is cooked to a core temp of 110 degrees.  That seems pretty honking low to me.  Hopefully it is marinated first.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Greetings!

Another note to self, carolla, take own steak when invited to graeme's for a barbeque.

I  have heard of aged steaks . . . but never heard them as referred to as blue steaks - wouldn't be something I would try.

Hope, peace, joy, love ...

These were steaks I used to get at the Steinberg's chain in Montreal back in the 60s, and we would all sit around on the floor of our family cave chewing on them and listening to the early Beatles.

They were quite raw in the store, of course. And they were labelled blue steaks and  had a blue tinge about them.

Of course, that was all a long time ago, when Steinberg's also used to sell prairie oysters. And I guess all these things are long forgotten.

Hey there - grocery stores and meat packers add some chemically preservative stuff that keeps the steaks looking pink.   It is true that after a few days, the pink leaves and the meat darkens if left in a fridge instead of a freezer. 

And what is fresh?  It surprises people to know that beef etc hang for days and days and days before we get to eat it.  Doesn't sound like 'fresh'. 

So - your meat that is 'healthy' & pink  is only in disguise.   And yes, NO Frills does sell the meat in their sale bins if you're lucky enough to get there.  Seriously.  Its cheap and fine to eat that day or freeze.

That said, I ate vegetarian meals this week. 

BTW - you said 'blue', and I was thinking you were talking about 'cooking very rare'.  I like it a bit better done than that.

As revjohn suggests, the term "blue rare" has to do with how done the steak is, not how rotten.

My Aquafather used to love his steaks cooked blue rare. He described it to me as slapping the meat-piece across the grill on both sides and then putting it on the plate to eat.

It never much appealed to me, and may be a minor reason why I don't eat cow.

 I was in a small  neighborhood grocery store that had a  really good meat section. Not huge but decent selection and quality was great. If you wanted a good steak, that was  where you went.  I was looking in the clearance section and noticed steak that had a greenish hue.  I pointed it out to him and he said that, ironically, that is the GOOD steak.  It is nicely aged and will be more tender than those bright red/pink ones. I bought it, saved some money, and he was right.

I like my beef definitely more rare than my hubby.  I cooked a nice roast from the same store a few weeks back.  It was medium rare, definitely still blood there. Hubby couldn't bring himself to eat it but I loved it. Very tender and tasty and juicy.  Jewish I am NOT.  (although I have all the respect in the world for them.  I like too many  foods that they can't have.)

Me: Carnivore.  

this steak was labelled in the store as blue steak, and advertised as aged. So I wonder how long you have to leave it out, and at what temperatures to do that.

As to kosher food, now it can be told...

I ran a Jewish camp for a couple of summers. It was kosher. The nearest kosher butcher was a good two hour drive. On the last day, at lunch, we ran out of food. Kosher was out of the question. So I sent my assistant into the local village to get cans of beans. I said it quite clearly and he is, after all, Jewish. The idiot came back with pork and beans. I had less than an hour to get the kids fed and on the bus.

So I grabbed my assistant by the scruff of the neck, and he and I sat in my tent separating the pork from the beans.

It matched my earlier blunder. The camp had no electricity, and I got meat only at intervals. How could I keep it? I saw a cold, deep spring - and a brilliant idea hit me. I borrowed a container from a local farmer, put the meat in, and sank it in the spring. It worked.

Two days later, the rabbi came by to see how I was doing and to ask if I was keeping kosher. I showed him how I had one tent for dairy, and one for non dairy, two sets of dishes and cutlery - and the meat ..I was so proud of my ingenuity...but the rabbi turned white.

Well, it wasn't my fault. I was a goy, for pete's sake. The only container for the meat I could find that was big enough that I could get up there was....a milk can.

graeme

Hmmm . . . Graeme,

There are two interpretations of "blue steak" on this thread.  But I notice that your definition was made clear in your opening post . . .

Wondercafe is so much fun.

 hahahaha

you kept the meat in a milk jug!  classic! that camping trip sounds like it could be on a sitcom! (what about Muslim? Do they have such food rules as from Leviticus? You could send it to Little Mosque on the Prairie!)

The way I always heard of Blue and beef in the same sentence was in Filet Mignon.

Here in Oz we love our meat, and compared to a lot of countries it's relatively cheap to buy.

When I was a child, it was not uncommon to eat meat three times a day - but most of us are down to one meal a day now.

We don't have blue beef, but we do eat buffalo steaks.

My only stipulation is that all my meat and poultry must be allowed to roam free in paddocks or yards. I figure if I'm allowed to have a life before I die, so should they.

Well, our meat has to come from Oz, so it's a little more pricey. We do have a nearby store that specializes in selling to restaurants. It's called cash and carry - and it has stuff like margarine in 10 kilo buckets. It also has steak at only two or three dollars a pound. But you have to buy twenty pounds or so at a time, and do your own cutting. .And that scares me. I don't know enough about what is a good piece of the cow. What if I get a bad piece, and we have to eat it for a couple of months?

As to how much a steak should be cooked, my feeling is if you poke your steak and it does not say moo, it is overdone.

Why does your cow have to come from Oz? Why don't you buy Canadian?

Oh, you're from Newfoundland, are you?

Actually, the word in the business is that the best steaks come from the US.

No. Whatever gave you that idea?

I disagree. The word is that the best cow is Kobe. It's why U.S. ranchers have started to crossbreed Wagyu with Angus to make "Kobe-style."

Now, getting back to you. Why are you buying from Oz?

actually, I"m not. But I am buyiing, as locals say, from away. It's strange, this corner of Canada was actually a major beef and horse raising area into the twentieth century.  But the big stores deal pretty exclusively with their own packers based in western Canada, transporting the stuff here at, I should think, considerable expensive.  Beef farmers here now barely survive. And I really don't understand the economics of that.

Fair go, mate. What's wrong with buying Oz beef? I buy Canadian maple syrup.

(I'd buy "smores" too, if they were available here). 

Oh Pilgrims Progress - s'mores cannot be bought - they must be made right at the campfire .... when you come to Canada we'll have a s'mores party!   My daughter is coming to Oz in January ... maybe I can send a care package for you with her ... she's pretty good at making s'mores! 

hey! we're talking beef. This man talk. Candy is for women and children and baptists.

By buying beef you're supporting cow-killing. You're causing pain to another life-form.

Whatever one buys, I believe in buying local.

A Canadian should buy Canadian products in order to help the Canadian economy.

you eat maple syrup? stealing the life blood from living trees while their children and other family watch?

As to buying Canadian products, you are harming Canadian business by not providing foreigners with the Canadian dollars they need to buy our goods.

LOL graeme! 

There'd be a lot of sad pancakes the world over if only Canadians bought maple syrup.

(Memo to Jesus - the Pharisees are still with us.)

Why do you suggest I'm a Pharisee? Is it because I am against cow-killing, or because I believe in supporting my nation-economy??

Hi carolla,

smores, saskatoons, potlucks, fiddle-something-pies. There's so much for a poor furriner to learn!

 Is your daughter coming to Sydney? I seem to recall something about an Aussie man in her life. If so. in January, it's an absolute must to swim at either Bondi or Manly beach. Please feel free to wondermail me if she needs any advice.

Do they have "double doubles" (hint -- it isn't liquor) in Oz?

Um, perhaps because I detect a self-righteous rigidity in your views? 

Perhaps in your own imagination. I do not consider my abstaining from eating animals that have felt pain while being slaughtered, or supporting the economy of my nation, to make me more righteous than anyone. I simply believe they are the right things for me personally to do.

Hi Ninja,

Duh, what?? (I immediately thought of liquor.)

Settle down, go for a swim or something.

Let's both hope that your carrots don't yell when you pull them out of the garden by their hair to eat. 

Pilgrim's Progress -- It's a take-away coffee with two shots of cream and two spoonfuls of sugar!
It's so common, it's shorthand for that.

It's true! It's true! I serve about 200 of them a day!

I'm a cappuccino coffee drinker, myself.

Memo to all Oz dentists - emigrate to Canada - there's sure to be lots of tooth decay.

pilgrim - I have forgotten her name, but I used to work on radio with a woman who, a good ten years ago, went to Sydney - and was on air on some station down there. Oh - her name is Melani King. Ever heard of her? Is she still on?

In my mind, it just ain't a meal unless it involves the death of some barnyard animal. Wild game is good too, but I don't hunt.

Blue Brand steaks is actually the old grading process. The best was blue: and the next, red.

Beef is aged at a specific temperature, and I don't recommend doing it yourself unless you are a butcher.

Out west, you can get steaks that are aged 21 days from Safeway.

In Ontario, the best you can get is 14 days (at a premium price), It seems to be a lost art here.

I have found that Greek restaurants do the best steaks.

damn, that's what I was afraid of.

thank you for clearing that up. but damn.

Sorry, Graeme, I've not heard of her. Maybe you could try googling her?

Gotta go - I've spent too much time on "blue" wondercafe already.

 Oh I know about this. I learned about it on a cooking show. :) 

 Yep blue steak is aged beef. The carcass is hung in a refrigerated environment. Has to be within a certain range so it doesn't rot or freeze. What happens is some sort of enzyme thing that causes the connective tissues to break down which makes it more tender.   Moisture also evaporates. This process concentrates the flavors.  Aged beef takes on a bluer tinge, hence 'blue steak.'  Blue rare is just any piece of meet that's barely cooked. 

 Aged beef can be anything from 11 days to six weeks.  It's not illegal  it's  just not so common anymore as it's an expensive process because of the space it takes up. Also the longer you age it the more weight you lose due to the evaporation so you end up with less to sell.   A lot of high end restaurants either hang their own or work with butchers that still do it.  That's one of the reasons it's difficult to cook a steak that you buy from a grocery store and get the same results as a fancy pantsy steak restaurant.

 I wouldn't try doing it yourself though. I think the environment required is pretty specific and you'd run the risk of growing nasties.  There may also be a difference in hanging a full carcass vs just letting a cut piece of meat hang out like you would cheese. Not sure though.

 Graeme you could try checking out a butcher. There's probably ones around that still do it.

This just brought up recent wounds.  Our butcher/meat packer's place just burnt done last year.  He aged all his steaks 28 days, he wouldn't even sell them if they weren't fully aged yet.  I miss it.  You could cook a steak well done in the oven and still have it melt like butter in your mouth.

All our game meat, from the size of a deer on up, is hung to age. When I had a root cellar back in the BC interior, that's where it was done. Hunting season was just cold enough to do it right, and you could age the carcass a full month with no harm done. Now that I'm on the island, I have to rent refrigerator space.

The key to aging game meat is preparation. The carcass has to be dressed, skinned, and cooled quickly, and hung in a cold, dry place as soon as possible to case. Casing is when the outer layer dries hard and helps to protect the meat. the longer you age the more tender and less gamey the meat gets, but the greater the risk of spoilage. AS long as the meat is kept cold and fry there is little risc, and the payoff is huge.

i don't know. Maybe I should just join pilgrim and become a carrot eater.

We had vegetarian meals (and excellent ones at that) all week last week.  Now I've got a hankerin' for a pork chop. 
At least since my inlaws invested in a small town small farmer meat packer, I've got a couple of free range mostly natural chops in the freezer.  Maybe that's dinner tonight...

Of course, the reality of Witch & Jadespring's descriptions are still harsh.  I asked my inlaws to watch the kids one weekend but decided against it when it would have meant a field trip to the packing plant.  UGH.

That, and I drove alongside a pig truck the other day. 

it's odd how our taste buds can act up. In China, the food was exquisite. Every meal was a fresh surprise and delight. But after several weeks, I found myself yearning for a Macdonald's hamburger, something I eat in Canada only if starving and unable to find a can of soggy spinach instead. I spoke to fellow travellers, and all said they had the same experience.

Shakes head in disgust at Graeme........

When I return from overseas my first meal is an Oz lamb chop and steamed vegetables.

And you want Macca's???

Where's your patriotism?

Might I suggest a potluck dinner, followed by saskatoon ice-cream and maple syrup. If you're still hungry you could have some smores with your double double coffee. 

lamb? as in...

Little lamb who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?