Have you ever had a vivid dream about eating something that your body has been craving? No? Just me? In the summer of 2019, I decided to start eating red meat again after nearly ten years without it. What triggered me to give meat a try was truly the dreams I would keep having about consuming it.
I know it is rather bizarre, but have you ever tried a lamb lollipop seasoned with fresh rosemary and garlic? It is truly amazing! I'm over here drooling about the idea of it as I write about it.
However, what we decided we would do since I decided to be reintroduced to the red meat life is only get the best products. Nothing ridiculously fatty or just bad for you. Does that mean we only eat liver and other offal? Hell no! My mom turned me away from offal from the very beginning after hearing all her liver horror stories. Blegh!
This means that we have been instead taking advantage of the best farm grown meat that is sold at our local farmer's market. Plus, we live in the Texas of Canada... hunting is very common here. Mind you, neither of us have ever gone hunting; though I would love to learn and experience hunting! So, getting our hands on cervidae animals is more possible here than in many other places.
What is our favourite red meat to cook with?
Elk is by far our favourite meat. What makes elk so great though, is that elk is high in lean protein without being tough, plus it doesn't taste gamy. Also, it truly doesn't smell when you are cooking it! I noticed that I absolutely abhor the smell of ground beef as it is being cooked. Elk, however, doesn't have that smell. You don't need to add an extraordinary amount of seasoning to hide the smell.
We love going for ground elk and grass fed beef the most, because ground meat can be used for a number of dishes. However, we also enjoy elk sirloin steaks.
Now, let's talk about steak. Steak is amazing. I do not know how I was able to go without eating steak for almost ten years. Steak is truly heaven in the mouth. We love our beef and elk sirloins, beef ribeyes, and sirloins. But here's my question to you, how well should a steak be cooked at?
My mother and older sister would say well done. While when I was 18 I would have said the same thing. But now?
Now, I am thankful for my man to have taught me how to really eat steak. The middle option and the option to the right of it on this picture are perfect for us, especially if cooked with duck fat! How about for you? What makes for the perfect steak? If you like your steak rare, do you also like it blue rare?
Since we are on the topic of doneness when it comes to the meat that we consume... What do you think about having a hamburger that is cooked at medium? Do you think you'll get e. coli poisoning from a medium well burger? I sure do! The way that I was taught by both my mom as well as the chefs in the kitchen while at hotel school is that burgers have to be 100% well done. However, in recent years I have noticed that our neighbours to the south (United States) tend to make their burgers with different levels of doneness. Who even DOES that? I was able to find this article that can guide you to a decent medium-well hamburger. Let me know if you venture down the road to
enjoy medium-well burgers and how they taste. I will be uncultured and be over here sticking to well done burgers, so I'd love to really hear your experience with medium-well burgers.
Anyway, after all of this you may be curious as to why I even stopped eating red meat to begin with. Well, the reason is kind of dumb... but I love love love cows. I mean, have you seen their perfect faces? In the Netherlands, you can see cows and their perfection almost everywhere and I just melt. In addition to their cuteness, I learnt when I was 18 how quickly and pretty inhumanely cows are slaughtered; this really upset met.
I did find this website that proves that I am not the only person to love cows: cows.ca. While I stopped eating beef, I decided to not eat most other animals that fall under red meat, including lamb and pork. Mind you, I still don't eat pork. Though, I do occasionally miss prosciutto. So, maybe the next time I am in Italy, I may eat some some pork so that I can enjoy prosciutto e melone.
Until then, I'll stick to what I already eat. We'll eventually try out goat and get some ostrich meat one of these days too.
I'll let you know when that happens.
Hope you all have a great day!
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