How often does it happen that you go out to eat and order a steak that’s medium-rare, only to get a very rare piece of meat served on your plate? If this sounds familiar to you, you are not alone.
The practice of undercooking steak is rife in restaurants across the globe, and it is not because these establishments don’t have the correct commercial catering equipment to deliver what you ordered. There is a sound logic behind it.
Reducing Waste
These days, there is a heavy focus on reducing food waste, and a reduction in the amount of discarded good food has come in to focus.
By undercooking your steak, a restaurant is trying to reduce waste and cut costs, so if your piece of meat needs to go back on the grill, they prefer that to throwing it away.
It is obviously impossible to undercook an already overcooked steak, so it is far better to go with the less is more option than deliver a steak that may be too well done and beyond redemption.
A New Trend
This trend of under rather than over is relatively new, and Commercial Catering Equipment should make it easier for restaurants to ensure that they deliver steak exactly as it is ordered. But it seems the problem comes in when some people’s medium-rare is another’s medium, and vice versa.
In order to suit everyone’s tastes and preferences, the trend of under rather than over has emerged, and it seems that the bottom line is that it is all about economics. As a restaurateur explained, if a patron sends back an overcooked steak, a whole new plate must be prepared, so any profit is immediately wiped off the slate, and the restaurant runs at a loss. As times are tough, it makes more sense simply to err on the side of caution and to plate a steak that can be cooked further rather than thrown away.
Aesthetic Factor
Even the best commercial catering equipment cannot make an overcooked steak look pretty, and that’s another thing that comes in to play when undercooking.
A juicy red steak versus a grey slab of meat is always going to win hands down, especially in the Instagram era that we now live in.