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Sauce or No Sauce

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Comments

  • hashissmokin
    hashissmokin Posts: 238
    Can't you be a steak purist and like sauce too.  I believe in a good cut of steak but I'm sorry no matter how good the steak.  I must have A-1!  Sorry.  Say what you want, a steak doesn't taste like a steak without A-1
    LBGE, Paris, KY.
  • JGoodson
    JGoodson Posts: 55
    Is sour cream considered a sauce ? Dang I love a well made filet or ribeye and some sour cream to go with it!
    McDonough,Ga   Large & Small BGE  Dawgs, Falcons and Bravos!
  • Being a "purist" precludes complications of any sort, by definition. It's ok to like sauce, but one cannot be both a purist and an adjunct advocate. Those states are mutually exclusive.
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    Copia ciborum subtilitas impeditur

    Seneca Falls, NY

  • nolaegghead
    nolaegghead Posts: 42,102
    edited May 2014
    There's nothing wrong with using steak sauce.  It exists for a reason - some people like it.

    Snobby foodie purists want to eat top quality, properly cooked (expensive) meat, and they want to enjoy the character of that meat.  Adding sauce is sacrilegious (to them) as it makes the meat taste like the sauce. 

    It's perfectly acceptable in the US to put A1 on your prime filet at a restaurant (Ruth's Chris stocks it).  They're getting your money and they want you to come back.

    Just like it is perfectly acceptable to eat sushi with chop sticks and drown the rice in soy and wasabi.  Perfectly acceptable here in the US.  Just don't insult a Japanese sushi chef in a high end restaurant in Tokyo by doing that.
    ______________________________________________
    I love lamp..
  • stevesails
    stevesails Posts: 990

    no sauce,,  but I do like some Zip sauce once in a while if I remember its in the fridge on the bottom shelf.



    XL   Walled Lake, MI

  • nolaegghead
    nolaegghead Posts: 42,102

    Being a "purist" precludes complications of any sort, by definition. It's ok to like sauce, but one cannot be both a purist and an adjunct advocate. Those states are mutually exclusive.
    That said, a purist steak aficionado would never eat haute cuisine where steak is combined with anything but salt, pepper and butter.   Common sauces like A1 are looked down upon as proletariat, while the haute sauces are acceptable, if the dish cost is high enough.  There's a wide spectrum of custom, quirks and snobbery with meat eaters.


    ______________________________________________
    I love lamp..
  • xiphoid007
    xiphoid007 Posts: 536
    edited May 2014
    High quality grass fed beef + kosher salt + fire = perfection.

    In my mind, sauce is for low quality beef or faulty cooking. Good, well cooked meat needs nothing but salt!
    Pittsburgh, PA - 1 LBGE
  • >That said, a purist steak aficionado would never eat haute cuisine where steak is combined with anything but salt, pepper and butter.

    Not entirely sure about that, but I'll concede your point, because I wasn't in that playground anyway.

    And just to be clear, I wasn't saying I was a "steak purist", or knocking those who liked sauce.  I was simply saying that (regardless of subject) the word "purist" typically implies something that adding sauce (adding anything, actually) negates.

    Otherwise, I could say I am a "Bourbon purist", and that I like mine mixed half and half with sprite.
    (for the record: I'm not, and I don't)

    My only point was with regard to what "purist" generally means.  Tough to claim to be a purist, and then adulterate the thing which is supposedly pure.


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    Copia ciborum subtilitas impeditur

    Seneca Falls, NY

  • KenfromMI
    KenfromMI Posts: 742
    Nolaegghead, not sure about that. In the documentary Jiro dreams of Sushi the most expensive Sushi restaurant in the world they were brushing some type of finishing sauce on the Sushi before serving it. It even shows him telling his apprentice the sauce had too much Wasabi in one part.
    Dearborn MI
  • Botch
    Botch Posts: 15,428
    That said, a purist steak aficionado would never eat haute cuisine where steak is combined with anything but salt, pepper and butter.   

     
    Butter?  Butter?!?!  Butter?!?!?!?
    Philistine!  
    >:)
     
    I've got Big Bang Theory on, and a creepily-relevant A1 Steak Sauce commercial just played!!  
    :-O
    _____________

    "I mean, I don't just kill guys, I'm notorious for doing in houseplants."  - Maggie, Northern Exposure


  • nolaegghead
    nolaegghead Posts: 42,102
    There's no such thing as a real "purist", the term is a platitude used for the ideological pursuit of wanting to be superior based on some learned pretext.   The definition exists, but anyone who subscribes to that is insane (in my opinion).  Come to think of it, there are purists.  Magic exists too, if you subscribe to religion.

    This forum is a stream of opinion.  I like that.
    ______________________________________________
    I love lamp..
  • nolaegghead
    nolaegghead Posts: 42,102
    KenfromMI said:
    Nolaegghead, not sure about that. In the documentary Jiro dreams of Sushi the most expensive Sushi restaurant in the world they were brushing some type of finishing sauce on the Sushi before serving it. It even shows him telling his apprentice the sauce had too much Wasabi in one part.
    Exactly.  My point is wasabi is the Japanese equivalent of steak sauce, to chefs.  

    From an old NY Times article:  (snippit)

    "Another sushi commandment, often flouted in American sushi bars, forbids dropping a piece of sushi into soy sauce and leaving it to soak. All the careful hospitality of the Japanese tradition could not conceal the shudder that ran through every sushi chef when asked about this practice. "It is very painful for us," Gen Mizoguchi of Megu said.

    For the record, you should turn the piece upside down and swipe the fish lightly through the dish of soy sauce. A small amount of wasabi can be added to the dish, but too much is disrespectful to the chef and the fish, as it drowns other flavors."

    ______________________________________________
    I love lamp..
  • KenfromMI
    KenfromMI Posts: 742
    I must have misread your post.
    Dearborn MI
  • KenfromMI
    KenfromMI Posts: 742
    Besides if I'm eating in the most expensive Sushi place in Japan and it's located in a Subway I'm not too concerned with the Chef's ego I'm eating my Sushi how I like it LOL
    Dearborn MI
  • Mattman3969
    Mattman3969 Posts: 10,457
    When mom made steaks I would drown them with ketchup. Dad had to have his steaks well,well, well done. These were done under the broiler. Once I started cooking my own there was no sauce and a lot more pink.

    And I eat my sushi without any wasabi or ginger. Just the way I like it.

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    analyze adapt overcome

    2008 -Large BGE. 2013- Small BGE and 2015 - Mini. Henderson, Ky.
  • I actually eat the sushi sans wasabi and ginger. And then eat the wasabi. And then eat the ginger.

    Re: wasab;i Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth.

    My usual gag is to act the neophyte and pick upmthe wasabi ball and say "what is this, mint?" (being light green), and then toss it in my mouth.

    Most people freak out. But chew and swallow, breathing in through the nose, out through the mouth. No problem.

    Good for a round of sake on a bet, too.
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    Copia ciborum subtilitas impeditur

    Seneca Falls, NY

  • KenfromMI
    KenfromMI Posts: 742
    So all you no sauce guys will be happy to know I went to my fridge and had no steak sauce tonight and ate my first BGE steaks just with salt, pepper, and a little homemade Montreal Seasoning mix LOL
    Dearborn MI
  • Mattman3969
    Mattman3969 Posts: 10,457
    Did you miss the sauce?? LOL

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    analyze adapt overcome

    2008 -Large BGE. 2013- Small BGE and 2015 - Mini. Henderson, Ky.
  • KenfromMI
    KenfromMI Posts: 742
    Actually I didn't use enough seasoning on the steaks. I guess since I use a little sauce I don't use as much salt etc on the steaks so I guess I did miss it LOL
    Dearborn MI