Took me 6 years to realize I was trimming fat cold

I always wondered why my steaks had that ragged look until a customer pointed out how much cleaner they'd be if I let the meat warm up a bit first. Has anyone else had that talk with themselves about tempering before trimming?

2 comments

2 Comments

blairm3512d ago

My butcher buddy Mike was the one who finally convinced me after watching me hack away at a cold ribeye. I used to think tempering was just something snobby cooks did to sound fancy. But he showed me on a cheap strip steak how the fat rendered differently and the muscle fibers didn't fight back. Changed everything for me after that. Now I leave stuff out for at least 30 minutes before I even touch the knife.

quinnmitchell12d ago

Learned this the hard way myself after spending twenty minutes trying to slice a fridge-cold New York strip... ruined a perfectly good piece of meat and almost my hand too. Now I leave everything out on the counter like a weirdo and my wife thinks I'm just being dramatic about it. But honestly, that first bite of a properly tempered steak makes all the standing around worth it.