What to do with rump steak?

[WiredIncorrectly]

My butcher had an offer on, 3 for 10 quid. I decided to try rump steak. I love steak, but not rump because it's often too chewy. We haven't been eating well of late, and I think that's playing a part in my mental health problems so decided to attend to diet.

I need some ideas on how to cook this so it's very soft, so would love some help from you folks.

If I put it in a ziplock bag, season it up, and smash it to bits with a tenderizer, will that help it be soft? Does marinading it in seasoning powders for a day or 2 help?

Thanks all, look forward to your suggestions.

[BlueIris]

Don't do either of those with decent rump steak, just make sure you don't overcook it.

[Fishmanpa]

If I put it in a ziplock bag, season it up, and smash it to bits with a tenderizer, will that help it be soft?

Both for beef and pork butt, what I do is season/marinate and tenderize it. I let it marinate overnight in the fridge with a seasoning paste my wife makes (green pepper, garlic, onion, ginger, cumin and other spices) and cook it in the crock pot on low for 8 hours. It literally falls apart and is great for sandwiches, tacos/tortillas and such.

FMP

[WiredIncorrectly]

Both for beef and pork butt, what I do is season/marinate and tenderize it. I let it marinate overnight in the fridge with a seasoning paste my wife makes (green pepper, garlic, onion, ginger, cumin and other spices) and cook it in the crock pot on low for 8 hours. It literally falls apart and is great for sandwiches, tacos/tortillas and such.

FMP

Great idea I've got a crock pot too, but I forgot about this! I think I'll go with this. That paste is making my mouth water, I've got these ingredients too so you've given me an idea now. Thanks FMP.

[WiredIncorrectly]

Don't do either of those with decent rump steak, just make sure you don't overcook it.

I'm not sure it's the premium stuff. Looks great non the less. Every time I've cooked the cheaper steaks they always come out chewy.

[BlueIris]

In which case, follow FMP's advice. I do similar with pork and chicken.

[Carnation]

I agree with BlueIris if you were eating as steak.
But rump I use as braising steak. In an ovenproof casserole pot with gravy just covering the top of the steak. With sliced or diced onions. I brown those first.
Get the oven hot then turn down low to cook for 6-8 hours.
I have wobbly teeth and I can eat steak this way.
Also better next day if you cook a good quantity.3 rump steaks should do 2 days.
Creamy mash potato to accompany. Beautiful!

[ankietyjoe]

I wouldn't bother with rump steak to be honest as it's always a bit of a lottery no matter how you cook it. If you really want to try though, minced pineapple is about the best tenderiser out there. Don't leave it on too long though, maybe an hour.

What I tend to do these days is get ground steak from the butcher for about £10-11/kilo (way more expensive than supermarket stuff, but 100% worth it, or alternatively I buy chuck steak for around the same price and slow cook it. It is filth.

Contrary to popular belief, red meat is massively nutririous when devoid of bread and mayo etc, so it's worth basing diet around it for sure.

Also maybe check out 'The Meat Man' website, they often have some pretty good deals on sirloin, albeit not local.

I'm on the fence about trying to do the carnivore diet for a few months right now. Apparently VERY good for anxiety/depression too as it allows your hormones to normalise. For me it's about treating some autoimmune stuff brought on by stress though. Maybe worth reading up on anyway.

[WiredIncorrectly]

Minced pineapple? I've never heard of that one.

I too am not a fan of cheap meat, but I thought I'd give it a try because if cooked well it's a good source of meat. Better than a pot noodle. I purchased £20 of ground too because I like to make a lot of things with ground beef. I can only eat it from the butcher because the supermarket stuff contains gristle.

My brother consumes a meat only diet. He also does Keto. He says both help him with his mental health. When he is on his strict diet he doesn't need to take his antidepressants and you can see his live improve all around. But when he slips into a regular diet he ends up in a MH hole and back on the medications. For him, he swears by it.

I tried it, and it made me feel unwell. I didn't give it enough time, but the side effects put me off. It's hard work when you quit everything and only eat meat. I have problems when I don't get a cup of tea in the morning :roflmao:

What concerns me with meat only diet is the potential for too much fat? My brother is about 18 stone. If he doesn't use the gym he will pile on the pounds. for building muscle it's an amazing diet.

But how many people live like we did back in history? Our level of physical activity is far less than it would have been when we were hunter/scavangers/builders. They needed that energy. And they probably didn't eat consistently every day, so when they ate well that fat and muscle helped them pull through times when they didn't eat.

That's why I tend to believe if you can only eat for 3 days in a week it would be better to eat clean meats, and eggs, than it would be to fill the freezer with junk food that will last you 7 days. Carbs, sugar, additives and preservatives will never do the body or the mind any good and consuming that junk for long periods of time is bound to have a negative impact on health. I've experienced and witnessed this many times.

[BlueIris]

I also worry about our cumulative effect on the environment with meat consumption. I honestly wish I had the willpower to go vegetarian, but meat really helps my digestion so I'm pretty flexible.

Really proud of myself for the vegetarian haggis recipe I devised last week and made last night, pretty sure it could've been fully vegan if I'd been feeling particularly obsessive. As it is, it looked vaguely like haggis and definitely tasted like it.

[ankietyjoe]

What concerns me with meat only diet is the potential for too much fat? My brother is about 18 stone. If he doesn't use the gym he will pile on the pounds. for building muscle it's an amazing diet.



This is why it's worth doing as much proper research as you can. It's widely accepted now that fat is not only NOT the enemy, it's actually hugely beneficial to overall health, as long as you're talking about wholefood fats, not seed oils.

Fat doesn't make you fat, a mixture of insulin exposure and too many calories make you fat.

Try this, eat 750 cals of steak mince and butter (that's about 2 quarter pound patties and a big chunk of butter). Now observe how hungry you are for the next few hours, probably not a lot.

Now eat 750 'normal' calories (2-3 slices of pizza, a sandwich and a bag of crisps).......and then see how hungry you feel for the next few hours. My guess is you'll be in the cupboard 20 minutes later looking for something else, or at least that's how I react to carbs.

I'm not suggesting carbs are evil, but we've been overusing them for decades, ever since the now highly conotroversial Ancel Keys 'study' on nutrition.

As best as I can tell, keto is the natural state we're supposed to cycle in and out of as various foods naturally became availble in the past. Doesn't matter that we don't live the same lifestyle these days, genetically we're still identical. Insulin is relased when we eat carbs to store the excess glucose that's been detected and store it as fat. In evolutionary terms, this would happen when certain fruits are in season so we can 'feast', and then keto kicks in during times of hardship to burn the fats during times of 'famine'. It's a completely normal cycle we're supposed to be in, but never actually access because of things like instant access pot noodles.

But like I say, do your own research. Once you do research it, it's like.....'duh, obviously'.

[Carnation]

Well done BI :yesyes:

I've always had meat in my diet. It does provide great energy. There's also a situation with a shortage of fruit and veg at the moment and the prices are ridiculous for what is an accompaniment to a main meal. They will be a lot of homegrown produce in people's back gardens, sheds and conservatories this year.

[Darksky]

My nephew and his wife are totally plant based. In this house we like meat too much but I agree with James it has to be good meat, although a cheaper cut and a slow cooker work wonders for a stew.
I have to have decent sausages and burgers. My nephew when he gets on his vegan lectures, delights in telling me what’s in a cheap sausage.

[ankietyjoe]

My nephew when he gets on his vegan lectures, delights in telling me what’s in a cheap sausage.

Ironically, mostly the same stuff that's in vegan sausages. Apart from, you know....meat.

[WiredIncorrectly]

I also worry about our cumulative effect on the environment with meat consumption. I honestly wish I had the willpower to go vegetarian, but meat really helps my digestion so I'm pretty flexible.

Really proud of myself for the vegetarian haggis recipe I devised last week and made last night, pretty sure it could've been fully vegan if I'd been feeling particularly obsessive. As it is, it looked vaguely like haggis and definitely tasted like it.

Good on you Blue! Vegetarian is tough. I've never found a true love for fruit or veg. Give me a choice over an apple, or a Snickers, and it'll never be the apple. Eating fruit and veg. feels forced to me, because I wasn't raised to eat them. My Dad hated them. I've had to learn to like them. I can put them in foods no problem, but remove the meat and the meal becomes unappatizing, and bland in flavour. And even if I try to make it taste like meat, it's not. And I know there is non there. So my brain is just put off by the meal.

I've tried to cook many vegetarian meals. The best I did was a chickpea curry and that was fantastic, but stomaching it was a problem. It's the textures mostly. Today I try to avoid carbs too, which puts a limit on what vegetarian meals you can cook. I love rice, but coliflour rice makes me feel sick, yet I enjoy coliflour with a roast dinner.

I put tomatoes in most things, but I couldn't eat a tomatoes on its own. Tinned food is another problem, I can't stomach tinned food. Mushy peas, and beans, is about it. How on earth do you store a chicken curry in a tin for years? That's what makes me feel sick about many tinned foods.

I'm very fussy with food, and tend to stick to foods I know and trust. My mom loves to cook for me, but it's a funny experience when she does. I like her goat curries, so she will pick me up and take me shopping to get the meat etc. She knows I have to see where the meat is coming from. I have to insist to the butcher that no bone is left on the meat. A shard of bone in a goat curry is an instant turnoff. Ah man, I miss my mom I need to see her this week.

I expect many grew up with parents who didn't eat much veg. but how do you break that psychological wall and learn to enjoy vegetables as much I as enjoy meat and junk?

[BlueIris]

Honestly, you try lots of stuff, but not everyone has that curiosity. When it comes to Indian food I much prefer the veggie stuff - my current takeout of choice is a £5.69 Too Good to Go bag from a local vegetarian Indian place. Tastes superb, and one bag feeds both of us for at least 1 meal each, normally 2.

[WiredIncorrectly]

This is why it's worth doing as much proper research as you can. It's widely accepted now that fat is not only NOT the enemy, it's actually hugely beneficial to overall health, as long as you're talking about wholefood fats, not seed oils.

Fat doesn't make you fat, a mixture of insulin exposure and too many calories make you fat.

Try this, eat 750 cals of steak mince and butter (that's about 2 quarter pound patties and a big chunk of butter). Now observe how hungry you are for the next few hours, probably not a lot.

Now eat 750 'normal' calories (2-3 slices of pizza, a sandwich and a bag of crisps).......and then see how hungry you feel for the next few hours. My guess is you'll be in the cupboard 20 minutes later looking for something else, or at least that's how I react to carbs.

I'm not suggesting carbs are evil, but we've been overusing them for decades, ever since the now highly conotroversial Ancel Keys 'study' on nutrition.

As best as I can tell, keto is the natural state we're supposed to cycle in and out of as various foods naturally became availble in the past. Doesn't matter that we don't live the same lifestyle these days, genetically we're still identical. Insulin is relased when we eat carbs to store the excess glucose that's been detected and store it as fat. In evolutionary terms, this would happen when certain fruits are in season so we can 'feast', and then keto kicks in during times of hardship to burn the fats during times of 'famine'. It's a completely normal cycle we're supposed to be in, but never actually access because of things like instant access pot noodles.

But like I say, do your own research. Once you do research it, it's like.....'duh, obviously'.

Now that makes a lot of sense Joe. That's how animals live too.

A cycle is just a frequency, a sine wave being the most fundamental in the Universe. The sun has an 11 year cycle. A sub bass is 40 cycles a second. The heartbeat has a cycle of 80 beats per minute. If you break the cycle of a sub bass, it becomes a different cycle and no longer the cycle it was. Break the suns cycle and I'm sure we'd have catastrophic effects here on earth. Break the cycle of a heartbeat and you've got a problem.

Which leads me to think if you break the cycles of food, eating, seasons etc that will have an effect on the state of the body.

Not saying that is the case, but when I read that part Joe it just made me think about the whole "everything is frequency" thing.

I think carbs are not good for me. When I'm eating mostly carbs I am prone to feeling weak, hungry, and hangry. And it's like a constant desire to feed the beast.

I have noticed many times that when I fast, I have no feelings of hunger or weakness. When I eat good foods the same happens. But when I consume carbs I am hungry every 2 hours and have to snack to stop that uncomfortable feeling.

[WiredIncorrectly]

My nephew and his wife are totally plant based. In this house we like meat too much but I agree with James it has to be good meat, although a cheaper cut and a slow cooker work wonders for a stew.
I have to have decent sausages and burgers. My nephew when he gets on his vegan lectures, delights in telling me what’s in a cheap sausage.

I tried vegan diet for a few months after Cancer. I became a preacher and preached the anti-meat agenda. When I ate meat again, I didn't care anymore for the vegan agenda. I was effectively just a hypocritical troll and normal people around me got annoyed with my anti-meat sermons :roflmao: The politics around diets is crazy these days.

[WiredIncorrectly]

Ironically, mostly the same stuff that's in vegan sausages. Apart from, you know....meat.

That's why I only eat free range tofu mate.

[ankietyjoe]

I think carbs are not good for me. When I'm eating mostly carbs I am prone to feeling weak, hungry, and hangry. And it's like a constant desire to feed the beast.

I have noticed many times that when I fast, I have no feelings of hunger or weakness. When I eat good foods the same happens. But when I consume carbs I am hungry every 2 hours and have to snack to stop that uncomfortable feeling.

It's not that carbs aren't good for you, it's about dosage. Some carbs are definitely not good for you, but those are the common staples these days, pasta, bread, cakes etc. They are a genuine drug.

Fasting is another normal bodily state that we're more than capable of enduring too, up to a point. So right now I'm 20% body fat more or less, and the average human body starts to struggle under around 10% body fat (hormanal function can start to become compromised for most people if they stay under 10% body fat, even more applicable to women). At around 180lbs, that means I have about 18lbs 'spare' fat to play with, or in other words around 75,000 calories just being carried around ready to be consumed. In reality, I could not eat anything for a month and be absolutely fine (and lots of people do this).

This is NORMAL. Consider food availability 25,000 years ago. The idea that it's unhealthy not to eat every 3-4 hours is fvcking absurd. The complete opposite is true.

Oh, and veganism is being heavily pushed right now because it's infinitely more profitable that meat production. Veganism just isn't natural to humans. Do your own research, of course.

[BlueIris]

I don't know whether it's natural or not, but it's so much better for the environment.

Of course, insect protein is the natural solution but it's a huge ick for me.

[WiredIncorrectly]

When you put that into calories like that it's shocking. My other halfs friends mom just passed, and she stopped eating around September. My stepdad was the same. Cancer does that, but the body is able to remain alive until there are no reserves left. And the body will keep you alive for that long. Fascinating really.

And it's equally effed up that companies are doing this in the pursuit of more profits. Greed, at the cost of human wellbeing. The marketing was ramped up after Brexit presumably because import costs of EU meat is too expensive.

[ankietyjoe]

I don't know whether it's natural or not, but it's so much better for the environment.

Of course, insect protein is the natural solution but it's a huge ick for me.

There's a lot of misquoted numbers regarding meat and the environment too though.

Of course, the way that meat mass production works by clearing rain forests is horrendous, and any kind of factory farming should be abolished, but meat production elsewhere directly damaging the environment needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Greenpeace for example state that it takes 3.5kg plant material to produce 1kg of chicken, and is therefore inefficient. But those numbers are not directly comparable as even at it's most basic, 1kg of chicken is not directly comparable nutritionally with 3.5kg plant matter. And again, if you're working these numbers out using farmed plant material, that's inefficient in itself. Modern mono crop farming is massively damaging to the environmen, avocado farming even worse. The meat on ONE cow would feed the average human for 6-9 months, and that human can actually thrive on ONLY the meat from that one cow too. Not needing anything else.

But now I sound like a dogmatic carnivore, and i'm not.

The reason veganism is being pushed so heavily right now (with all the accompanying 'data') is that it is SO much more profitable than meat based manufacture. The production process for meat farming can't be dumbed down any more as customers reached the limit of what they deemed acceptable in terms of treatment of the animals.

[WiredIncorrectly]

I don't know whether it's natural or not, but it's so much better for the environment.

Of course, insect protein is the natural solution but it's a huge ick for me.

The butterfly effects of humans consuming insects will lead to problems. When humans start raping nature for its insects the creatures that survive on them will die.

And also don't forget that the production of insects for mass consummation would require huge amounts of unnatural resources through the entire chain.

[WiredIncorrectly]

Honestly, you try lots of stuff, but not everyone has that curiosity. When it comes to Indian food I much prefer the veggie stuff - my current takeout of choice is a £5.69 Too Good to Go bag from a local vegetarian Indian place. Tastes superb, and one bag feeds both of us for at least 1 meal each, normally 2.

Actually, you reminded me. I do like a potato madras sometimes. My local does a really nice one!

[WiredIncorrectly]

GM food is shocking too. I didn't understand what "genetically modified" meant until I was older. The altering of a plants DNA to produce desirable effects.

The alteration of crops has already seen far reaching effects such a the evolution of weeds that are resistant to pesticides but also:

* Toxicity
* Antibiotic resistance
* Immune-suppression
* Cancer
* Loss of nutrients

That's just some of them.

Imagine if you looked through a microscope at a ball, and you can see all these little germ particles that look like they're not moving? But if you zoom in with a satellite you can see the little particles moving around. And over time the particles increase in certain areas. And fluff grows on the surface like mould (cities).

That's us. We're the germs that reproduce faster than we die. We are the problem.