get into cooking NOW, getting fancy is not necessary at all as just getting the basics right will improve taste tenfold.
even a simple chicken with broccoli and rice can taste absolutely amazing if you have the basics down(correct doneness of meat/vegetables, tricks to enhance flavor) and was oftentimes even among my favorite staple meals as the chicken/broccoli/rice combination with a slight butter touch is amazing.

speaking about bro-meals
trout with buttered vegetables and tzaziki

600kcal
simple, very tasty and nutritious

other meals were small stuff mostly(beef frankfurter with whole-grain rye, smoked salmon sandwich etc etc)
__________________________________________________ _______________
kcal expenditure 2800ish
kcal intake 2000ish

ez game
__________________________________________________ _______________

OHP
95x3(42,5kg)
105x3(47,5kg)
120x5(55kg)

sitting DB press
44sx8(20kgs)
40sx8(18ks)
35sx8(16kgs)

dips:
+65x10(30kg)
+45x10(20kg)
+45x10(20kg)
unplanned longer break
+45x14(20kg)
+45x10(20kg)

close-grip Lat-pulldown
220x8(100kg)
200x8(90kg)
187x8(85kg)
165x8(75kg
165x8(75kg)

+abs

rest day = lowered carb intake

thick flank steaks with buttered vegetables and whole-grain lasagna with pumpkin, feta and spinach



still a little unsure about what degree of doneness i prefer so had the other steak in the oven a little longer


1000ish kcals

also have a meat-ball sauce on the stove for around 8 hours already, looking forward to indulging on that tomorrow

Steak looks lovely

ye I suck at making steak as I have literally no experience at it(beef is crazy expensive here)
will just do that the next time

--> seems like the great reason for eating a lot of it in the coming weeks to nail the technique down :-)

Video is not available in my country.

great idea
shouldn't take too long tbh(up until today I ate steak mostly just when eating out as it has good effectiveness in restaurants)
it's "the perfect steak" by heston blumenthal

I tried his (slightly unconventional) recipe for fries and it is A+, I also base my light fries on it

Thanks, I googled it and got it from another site

That doesn't look like what we call a flank steak in USA#1. It has been almost 15 years since I lived in Austria and I don't quite recognize the cut you used. Here is a USA#1 flank:



It isn't really a popular cut, although I like it. It is great for a dish like rindsrouladen and it does take to marinade pretty well. mrscrashjr likes it with a teriyaki marinade then seared to rare, cliced thin and on the bias.

Second steak looks much better than the first but still has a way to go. Are you bringing your meat up to room temperature before cooking?

it's called "zapfen" in austria and "kugel" in germany


I googled around a bit and found out that there is a big wholesaler(metro) where I can get quality beef in whole for affordable prices(US/Irish/French Prime beef).

will check that out tomorrow and will prepare it with the heston blumenthal method, I expect a good outcome.

and ye i'm always getting meat/chicken/fish up to room temperature before searing and also rest all of the above for around 5mins.
my chicken is the most tender ever, contrary to steak where I only made like 10 life-time I made chicken like 2000+ times in my life and therefore already learned from my early mistakes.
cooking is a lot of trial and error.

That's a sirloin tip in USA#1. Usually used to make stews and stroganoff. I wouldn't think to use it to fry up as a steak. It is a lean, tough cut compared to more traditional steak cuts like striploin and ribeye. Yes, they are considerably more expensive.

As you might suspect, beef cuts are inconsistently named around the world, and there is not even much consistency in the English speaking world.

ye it can be quite confusing to say the least
i'm a big rib-eye fan(great fat-marbling), think Entrecôte is the same cut? or just a similar one?
not quite sure about roast-beef either.
also strip-loin is the same thing as rump-steak, right?

Entrecôte is the same primal as the ribeye, but it is trimmed differently in europe than in the USA. Roastbeef is striploin, called new york steak in USA#1 and top sirloin in UK#33, and sold as top sirloin in Europe if it is sold using English. Top sirloin in USA#1 is the top part of the rump (uk) or Hüfte (Germany), though I regularly saw it sold with part of the short loin in Austria.

I basically have 4-5 different descriptions for same cut when buying meat, it's ridiculous.
german/austrian/british/american and sometimes french.

thanks for your help btw, know a lot more now.

If you have a question just ask here. I also know a lot of the latin american cuts. Its what happens when a young butcher travels.

so finally time to indulge on the meat-ball sauce, cooking time around 10hours(cooling off and warming up again about 4x times, seems excessive but is totally worth it)

whole-grain gnocchi with meat-ball sauce

around 1000kcals
__________________________________________________ _______________
last WO of week2 of 5/3/1

squat
160x3(72,5kg)
180x3(82,5kg)
205x10(92,5kg)

RDL
220x8
220x8
220x8

BFE split squat
+26 DBs(12kg)
x8, right and left
x8, right and left

+abs

__________________________________________________ _______________
was around maintenance calories yesterday(much tougher to keep a deficit on rest days) 6x deficit days + 1 maintenance or slightly above works fairly well right now(maybe have to include a 2nd maintenance day when I get even leaner)

kcal expenditure 2600ish
kcal intake 2000ish
__________________________________________________ _______________

thanks
have always been interested in "butcher basics"(like cooks in apprenticeship have to learn) but seminars for hobby cooks are hard to come by.
having the basic knowledge and being able to cut up meat properly is a really valuable skill-set, have become acceptable at filleting a whole chicken/trout which saves a lot of money(filleting trout myself I usually pay half the price and get the fish carcasses for stock to go with it)

Wandering in health food store with gf today and grabbed some kamut pasta because of this thread.

Was excellent, much prefer texture of it to regular pasta + the extra protein is a nice bonus.

what I have noticed so far with kamut(whole-grain) pasta is that you usually have to cook it a lot shorter than the packet suggests to not overcook it completely, the one I'm using right now is al dente after 8 mins(packet suggest a cooking time of 11min)

whats the thought behind cooling off / warming up the meatball sauce 4 times?

and yeah, have a look at the steak thread in oot. your steak game is very lackluster compared to your other stuff.

dishes with long-seared meat that contain a variety of flavor get better with long cooking-time and cooling down phases in between(preferably even one night in the fridge)
curries, stews, goulash and tomato-meat sauces get much much better that way, reason is probably that the fat gets absorbed by all the ingredients and flavors can "unfold" better and create a more coherent mix.

I googled around a bit for an article
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nadiaaru...taste-so-good/

edit:
oh just read it in full, that's actually a very good article

metro is pretty great for meat
bought a bunch of US entrecôte, Irish black angus roast-beef and got 20% off on a wild boar neck i'm gonna use for a ragout

not quite sure what to make with this "schildstück"(flat iron steak, right?)


marbling would be good for a steak but not sure how to go about the big tendon.

If steak isn't an option I would just put it in a meat-chopper for a burger or possible make a pot roast.
would appreciate your thoughts.

I'm not familiar with schildstück. It looks like it is from the top blade, same as flat iron, but a flat iron is cut with the grain along the tendon, then the tendon is removed. Your steak in the picture is cut on the bias with the tendon left in.

http://www.chefs-resources.com/files...ng%20Guide.pdf

I don't know if that article is agreeing with your method for making meat sauce...

"We’ve talked a lot about taste. Does the texture of leftover food improve over time?

Yes, it can, at least a stew or a curry or a sauce can become thicker and creamier. When you heat a meat dish then cool it then re-heat it again, it will become more viscous because the fibers in the protein break down releasing the interstitial gelatinous material that’s in-between the cells – this gelatinous material is actually what’s holding the protein cells together in a piece of meat. Every time you heat and cool the protein, a little more of this material seeps out and thickens the surrounding liquid. However, if you repeatedly heat reheat and cool the dish many times, the meat itself will become increasingly stringy as it loses more and more of this gelling material."

I haven't really seen any stew/curry/sauce recipes that call for cooling and reheating multiple times. they cook for a long time and the leftovers are always better, but those only get cooled and reheated once after a long initial cook.

it seems like your method may leave you with a luscious sauce but with dried out meatballs.

ye it's slightly better for a normal meat-sauce(where the meat is basically becoming a part of the sauce)

long-cooked meat will always become somewhat stringy(but really tender) and if you don't really like that you should probably get out the meat-balls and just re-heat the sauce(sauce won't become nearly as good though)