Food Safety Consumption Tips: Steak is eaten right Delicious and healthy

Source: China Consumer Daily

■ Reporter Li Jianwen/Photo

The tender, juicy, nutritious steak is the antidote to the meatless people. However, this "large piece of meat" coming out of the Western restaurant has also confused many consumers. Sirloin steak, filet steak, eye steak... Which part of the beef do these "foreign names" refer to? Three points, five points, seven points cooked... How do you choose? How to eat steak, you may wish to listen to the advice of experts.

How much do you know about the steak category

Steak is called "ribs", which has nothing to do with ribs. The so-called "row" refers to the lumpy meat. Zang Mingwu, deputy chief engineer and professor-level senior engineer of China Meat Food Comprehensive Research Center, said in an interview with China Consumer Daily that as an important beef product, there are many categories of steak:

Original cut steak: is slaughtered and divided, directly packaged whole piece of fresh, frozen cut beef, according to the different parts of the division, can be divided into sirloin steak, filet steak, rib eye steak and so on. The original cut steak is of the best quality, and consumers can feel the original taste of the steak classic, but the home cooking is time-consuming, laborious, and the convenience is slightly worse.

Conditioning of original cut steak: using the original cut steak as raw material, adding water, spices and food additives, etc., it is processed by pickling, rolling, freezing and other processes. It is easy to eat and the quality is closest to the original cut steak.

Recombinant steak: It is made of small pieces of beef as raw materials, adding water, spices and food additives, etc., and processed by marinating, rolling, pressing or shaping, freezing and other processes, and its processing cost and edible quality are relatively low.

And those inexplicable steaks "foreign names" are related to the beef part.

Filet Steak: Beef tenderloin removed from the hip and waist muscles is the most tender meat on the ridge, the overall lean, almost no fat, the price is relatively high.

Eye steak: There are many other names, such as eye steak, rib eye steak. The price is slightly lower than filet, the tenderness of the meat is also very good, the oil flower distribution is evenly fine, and it also has a little tendon flower, so it is more fatty than filet; the eye meat steak will also derive the eye meat cover, the eye meat core and the tomahawk.

Sirloin Steak: Also called a sirloin steak. In fact, it is the outer ridge of the cow, the obvious sign is to bring a white meat tendon, compared to the other two kinds of steak, sirloin steak is more chewy, so it is not suitable for children and the elderly to eat, the price is slightly lower than the other two kinds of steak.

In addition to these three classic steaks, there are also T bone steaks derived from Sirlon and Fili, as well as upper brain (snowflakes), plate tendons, beef steaks and so on. Generally speaking, the latter three parts are generally considered to be of slightly inferior quality because they all have some tendons that will affect the taste.

Zang Mingwu said that consumers can search for professional beef cutting charts from the Internet, each part of the beef body is clear at a glance, as for what part of the steak to choose, according to their own taste.

What are the tricks to judge the merits

Beef is high in protein, low in fat, rich in potassium, zinc, magnesium, iron and other mineral elements and B vitamins, is one of the sources of high-quality animal protein in people's daily lives.

Choosing a steak that suits your taste and has high quality, Zang Mingwu advises consumers to pay attention to the following three points:

Look at the cold chain. Steak is mostly refrigerated or frozen products, cold chain is an important condition to ensure its quality, should try to choose a complete qualification, good reputation, cold chain system is more sound large supermarkets and e-commerce platform sales of steak.

Look at the appearance. Pay attention to the selection of products with good packaging and clear labels, and the original cut steak should also have an animal inspection and quarantine certificate or an inspection and quarantine certificate for imported goods. At the same time, the texture of the overall cut steak with good quality is natural, and the direction of each group of muscle fibers is consistent, and it will not be too rounded and regular. If the shape of the steak is regular and round, the texture is scattered and there is no consistent trend, the muscle fibers are short, the uniformity of color and luster is poor, and the price is low, it can basically be considered a recombinant steak.

Read the label. If the product ingredient list contains only beef, it is a raw cut steak, and if it also contains spices and/or food additives and is nominally "sirloin steak", "filet steak" or "rib eye steak", it is a high-quality conditioned original cut steak. If the label does not have the names of these parts, but there are many ingredients, then it may be ground beef or low-priced beef recombined. For example, black pepper steak, most of them are like this.

When the steak is bought and cooked at home, there are also some indications that can judge the quality:

Look at the color: Fry the steak until it is about five minutes cooked, cut the steak and see the color of the meat in the middle. For a normal steak, the edge color after cooking is meat brown. If other additives are added, the steak will be a little more colorful.

Because the reconstituted steak is processed with minced meat or other beef, there will be a slight void after thawing, which will be more obvious to the light. After the real good steak is naturally thawed, the lines are aligned, the incision formed by physical cutting is natural and smooth, and the meat is a simple flesh red. Imported steaks, due to the long period of time in the freezing temperature, are generally dark red.

Taste: whole cut, no added high-quality steak taste Q bomb, muscle fiber chewiness is good, easy to become old after frying; inferior steak how to fry will not be too old, the taste is more slaggy, no elasticity.

The steak should be eaten a little cooked

The way of frying to lock the moisture inside the steak, so that the external cooked meat and the internal raw meat produce a wonderful taste difference, not only can taste the original taste of tender beef, but also to maximize the preservation of the nutritional value of beef. It is said that this is the "theoretical basis" that Western cooking steaks are often kept in three, five, seven and less fully cooked.

In addition to personal taste, it should also be considered in combination with the characteristics of different parts of the beef.

Filet Steak: The meat is lean and tender, three, five and seven minutes cooked; because there is very little fat, the family can fry each side for 3 to 5 minutes.

Meat-eye steak: fat and lean meat, fried flavorful, three points best cooked; home frying each side about 2 to 4 minutes is the best.

Sirloin steak: Although it contains fat oil, the overall taste is strong, the meat is hard, and there is a chewy head, which is suitable for young people and people with good teeth. The flavor is unique and juicy, with the richest taste at four to six cooked temperatures; home frying is enough for about 30 seconds on each side.

It is said that ordering a fully cooked steak in a Western restaurant will not only be ridiculed by the waiter, but also angry with the chef. In fact, such concerns are not necessary. The reason why many Chinese people choose fully cooked steak is mainly because they are afraid of the "blood water" in the steak. Because the bright red blood water not only gives people the illusion of drinking blood, but also makes people worry about parasitic diseases caused by eating raw meat.

Such concerns are not without merit. Ruan Guangfeng, director of the Science and Technology Department of the Science and Technology Exchange Center of Kexin Food and Nutrition Information Exchange Center and member of the Expert Committee of the China Internet Joint Rumor Dispelling Platform, said in an interview with the China Consumer Daily reporter that parasitic infections are currently rare, but if you eat barbecues and hot pots, if you do not pay much attention to whether meat products are cooked, you may eat live cysticercosis and get taeniasis.

Ruan Guangfeng said that taenia oxenalis is a parasite with cattle as the intermediate host and humans as the ultimate host, and its pathogen is the bovine cysticercosis, and cattle infected with cysticercosis are the main source of infection of taeniasis in cattle. People who are sick are very likely to eat beef that is not fully cooked and infected with cysticercosis. In general, patients have no obvious symptoms, and some will have abdominal discomfort, hunger, indigestion, diarrhea or weight loss, which may cause intestinal obstruction, intestinal bleeding and intestinal perforation in the long term.

If so, can the steak still be cooked in three minutes? Nguyen Quang Feng said that this requires many considerations. Whether the beef has parasites is related to the quality of the beef and the transportation, storage and processing. Generally speaking, if there is no problem with the quality of the beef and the storage and processing process is hygienic, there is no need to worry.

When consumers usually eat steak, if the restaurant they go to is more formal, the beef has been inspected and quarantined, and the chef's operation hygiene is standardized, then the steak can be three points cooked or five points cooked according to personal taste preferences. However, if you go to a small restaurant where the quality is difficult to guarantee and the operation is not standardized, you should try to eat a steak that is cooked thoroughly.