Concept cooking: Help me with this meat and a rant on words

I have been vegetarian for over 40 years. Due to asst weird reasons, I'm trying to add meat to my diet. Honestly, at this point I don't feel like I digest it, and I don't like it much. I'm trying. I got some really good looking strip steak NextGen strip steak (I think it's that, definitely NextGenBeef, definitely strip steak, I did not pay that much though, although it was not cheap.)

The rant about words: When I look up cooking any kind of steak in different ways, everything I see on the net involves making it taste like it just came off the grill, even if it didn't. It drives me crazy that the way words are, once a word has been used, people have a visual of exactly what it means and no other shades are reality. It's rather like only accepting whole numbers (4 or 9) instead of fractions or decimals (8.67204 might be something really cool!) It really bugs me with food, I don't name my food due to this, people say "well THAT doesn't taste like a deviled egg!" or "THAT isn't sushi!!" Sorry, it's eggs that were boiled and the yellows mashed and spiced and replaced, or veggies in a spiced grain mix rolled up into seaweed and sliced, I don't have a word to use that you don't have associations with. So the whole meat stuff is running into this. If you want to sous vide a steak, all of the recipes think you want it to end up tasting like it came off a grill. I have no such associations, I haven't eaten one like that for a VERY long time, and wasn't particularly a fan of them then. But there isn't information for us fractional folks, so I am asking for help .

What I want from these is to have easy to eat (non tough, I have teeth problems) meat with lots of non-meat flavors involved. And (much to everyone's horror I suspect) I currently have one of the steaks in the crockpot with blackeye peas, a couple of good beef bullion cubes, balsamic vinegar, fresh ginger, garlic and onions, and cumin, caraway, Indian bay leaf, and star anise.  I want tender, and flavor that isn't "a hunk of dead animal" as that's what I'm fighting with. That's what I see when it's on my plate, and it's not appetizing at all to me. I HAVE been hiding meats in casseroles etc, that helps, but this is the first "steak" I have tried, and they have been in the freezer and I really haven't had any urge to eat them. Crock pot might help me be less appalled by it. I don't want the usual "steak" and if I did I'd go to a restaurant and order one as they'd probably do it better than me.

How can I make this probably very high quality meat fit my parameters?

I can probably sous vide, haven't tried but I have cooking skills and electric cookers I can control well. The steaks are currently in single serving freezer packed in vacuum bag, just using that seems like all I'd get is a cooked chunk of meat, which gets back to I don't want that.

I'll be interested to taste my crock pot of stuff, I have done classic pot roast out of basic cheap meat from the supermarket, and it was... meh. Not horrible, not attractive to me. I'm hoping better meat and more interesting spices will help. I am not liking eating meat as just a chore that must be done because I have reasons to want it done.  

What else can I do that I might like?

To me the price of steak means grilled steak like at a steakhouse.

However, I have no problem cooking them in a crockpot like Salisbury Steak, Swiss Steak, etc.

Here is a thread I did for Skirt Steak which is usually done in Fajitas though I am not a fan of Fajitas. I paid premium steak prices because this meat was sold under a different name.  You might like some of the ideas that folks suggested:

https://permies.com/t/193952/Skirt-Steak-Recipes-InstaPot

Western, and particularly American, recipes use hunks of meat as a major ingredient. That "piece of cow fresh of the grill" idea is less common in food from other cultures. I'm thinking about stir fry where the meat is cut into thin strips, marinaded before cooking, and served with copious amounts of veggies and noodles.  The protein is there, but a much smaller proportion than you would find in western meal. This would possibly be a good approach for you, as it would help your digestive system slowly adjust to having more meat protein, while the flavours move away from being about the meat itself.

As far as wanting to avoid tough dry meat; this is usually about overcooking. I learned cooking from my parents, and they routinely overcooked meat so it dried out. I've been relearning cooking and bought myself a meat thermometer. It has completely transformed the outcome. Look up what internal temperature you are aiming for, take it out shortly before it gets there, and then let it rest under a cover (eg foil and teatowels). The internal temperature will continue to rise, as it balances out. The end product will be moist and juicy.

Other options - I've recently been experimenting with meatballs. Breadcumbs, egg yolks as a binder, finely chopped or ground meat, your choice of salt/herbs. With enough breadcrumbs and egg yolks they will be lovely and moist.

If you are going down this route anyway, and your total meat consumption is low, I would suggest you look into other options for your meat source. We have been eating a lot of game meat recently - pheasant, wood pigeon, and deer mostly. There is a facebook group here in the UK that puts hunters in contact with people who want meat for human consumption. Prices are great, and you know the quality is amazing. One afternoon butchering stocks our freezer nicely. I can portion out the stuff into the size that suit us as a family, rather than what the supermarket thinks is right.

Also, how are you with fish? My wife is vegetarian, but enjoys fish still. I can occasionally get (farmed) salmon at a good price here, and have stocked our freezer before. Again, it is much cheaper to take a whole fish and butcher it myself than to buy portions from the supermarket.

The added bonus of doing your own butchery - whether pheasant, deer, or salmon - is the stock you make from the bones. A homemade bone broth, condensed down a lot, absolutely transforms other cooking. Sauces, stews and soups will be amazing. And the nutrition from a good broth will be both easier for you to digest and be fully of stuff that a long term vegetarian may be deficient in.

Pearl, a jaccard (like this: https://www.amazon.com/Jaccard-200348-Supertendermatic-48-Blade-Tenderizer/dp/B001347JK6) will go a LOOONG way toward both tenderizing and getting those other flavors into your meats. For anyone who has never seen, used, heard of it, it is a lot of tiny, super sharp blades gathered, with a handle on top, that you shove down into the meat, to cut through the soft (and not so soft) tissues, of the meat. It breaks up the gristle,slices through any and all connective tissue, etc, allowing better penitration of liquids, spices, and flavors. Additionally, you can slice with a thin, small blade, to manually insert things like garlic and bits of onion, directly into the meat. You can combine both techniques, for a super tender meat that tastes MUCH less like meat.

Anne:  thank you, I'll check the link  :D

Michael: Pieces and parts is how I've been hiding it, I'm a fan of Oriental and Indian food. I added fish back a couple of years ago, took me a while to get used to that too. I have butchered in the past, and have the skill, but currently having little interest in eating meat I don't need much around at one time and my freezer is always full. Still looking for cheap sources I trust, lots of things I consider iffy around here.

Carla: Spiffy! I see how it would work.  Hmm...


First taste on the meat from the crock pot is it's really crumbling apart. So that meat is better quality that I thought. I'll have to think what to do with the next piece. The broth was too watery, the meat is out, the broth is getting boiled down before it goes back in.

Just because it's "good steak" doesn't mean that you can't slice it super thin while it's still slightly frozen (makes it easier to slice), then marinate it.

My fave: bit of apple cider vinegar, bit of soya sauce, bit of toasted sesame oil (a little goes a long way, so start small) finely grated garlic and ginger, other spices as desired.

Acid (vinegar or lemon/lime juice for example) helps to start breaking down the meat before cooking. However, when I make corned duck it is based on a corned beef recipe and that's the same idea. It starts the breaking down process, but in a way that adds a lot of flavor.

I like contributing to cooking threads, but I don't know how to cook meat, so I won't have anything useful to say.

But I kind of empathize with your situation. I've been vegetarian for 32 years. And I'm having some weird health issues that the docs just shrug about and it's occurred to me that there might not be deep enough studies to really know that I haven't shorted myself of something important. So I've been considering adding some animal matter to my diet, but the idea is powerfully off-putting. I've been thinking about oysters maybe. Anyway, good luck with your quest!

Using a meat tenderizing hammer, beat your steaks thin.
Marinate in Italian salad dressing.  I cook these on a charcoal / wood grill.
Very tender and tasty no matter how you cook them.

Hey Pearl, stewing is a great way to tenderise tough cuts and introduce other flavours. We had a ram butchered a few months ago and although the meat is super tasty, it is tough as in old boot territory. So what I like to do is put a half dozen chops in a pot, add a little water and olive oil, and set it to simmer for a few hours (you could put ingredients in a slow cooker in the morning and let it go all day). Along the way I toss in veggies and seasoning. Right now we have an excess of tomatoes and figs, so last night's dinner was a lamb tagine with fig and tomato, onion, celery, garlic, spiced up with some African berbere, cinnamon stick, allspice, and bay flower buds. I dug some spuds and baked them for a side dish, and everything basically disappeared.

In my experience the meat that is most tasteless and still tender is meat that has been pressure cooked to death.
This usually creates a meaty flavorful broth,and meat that has been rendered of all its fats.
This leaves the meat relatively flavorless and soft.
People remedy this lack of flavor by cooking in a sauce or adding a sauce afterwards.

For you I would pressure cook it in plenty of water,then set aside the resulting meaty broth, mince the meat, saute it with onions and spices, then dilute it into a sauce.

Steak can be ground, or puréed in a food processor. Once you are dealing with it at a superfine chop, it gets easier to mix into things.
Chili is a super easy way to hide some meat. All those beans, tomatoes, onions and spices. ( and whatever else you like) It will just give a bit of richness to the general dish. Then you have something to use in: nachos, soft tacos, quesadillas etc.
You can also mix and dilute the ground the meat with texturized vegetable protein. Then you can use the combo to do little meatballs, as suggested above. The mixing will reduce the intensity of the flavour.
Cottage pies, tomato sauce dishes, pies and pasties, soups and stews, and the casseroles you have already been doing should all be able to tolerate the meat and tvp combo.

I didn’t read everyone else’s responses, but how about just adding small amounts of meat to dishes that you already enjoy? A bit in stir fry, maybe add a few bacon bits to a salad, some slow cooked and shredded meat to a taco or casserole?

i think you're definitely on the right track looking at recipes from other cultures and foodways AND using that crockpot. Most crockpot recipes involve good spicing.
You might want to look at something like goulash or paprikash (American style) where the meat is basically a filler. Same with Turkish recipes with meat stewed with other stuff. In fact I think there would be a lot of stew from all over the place...
(I'm also a former veg and newly on the protein train. It's a learning curve for me, and not something that comes naturally. Just recently I've gotten over my childhood trauma of ground beef and realized it can actually be really nice. Who knew!)

Lots of ways to handle this.  If it was me, I would go with ground meat.  Many ways to incorporate other none meat flavours.  But the big thing you mentioned is your teeth.  I also have teeth troubles and ground meat is so much easier to chew

Interesting, what you write about the "grill taste"... I'm guessing it might be a promise of a deeper flavour in your resulting dish, rather than something dull and tasteless (which broth can be).
If you're getting back to meat for health reasons, I recommend a book by dr Natasha Campbell-McBride, "Gut and Physiology Syndrome". It's about healing different physical and mental health issues with proper diet. She basically starts with broth, and then gradually introduces other foods. There is a ton of recipes, from the easiest to digest to more diverse. Also a lot of advice about how to introduce new stuff.

As for the aesthetic reasons, if anything puts me off these days, it's meat that does not look like meat; makes me think of highly processed foods. I like when my food is somehow a proof that the animal was happy and healthy ;) and that it was alive not so long ago. Same for veggies and fruits!
Which brings me to my favourite comfort food: the steak tartare. It's minced beef served with chopped onions, raw egg yolk, pickles and spices. It's basically raw meat so only an option if the meat is from reputable source, tested for any possible parasites. Definitely easy to eat, as the meat is very soft if properly prepared.
There is also salmon tartare, often found in sushi bars. I haven't tried it yet.

Ya'll are missing the most important food group. Sausage gravy and biscuits! https://thesaltymarshmallow.com/best-sausage-gravy/

I've made do with groundbeef and assorted hot spices.

Chicken is the friend of people who have teeth problems.

When we went to the big city last week I bought bone-in chicken thighs because my labor is free.

I boned out the tight, and put bones and skin in a bag to make bone broth.

Some thighs went into the freezer and I put three boned chicken thighs on the George Forman Grill.

Very tender with cabbage, onions and celery I cooked today.

What Michael Cox said about letting the meat rest is worth repeating I think. Especially if you go for quick cooked meat like stir fry rather than stewed where it ought to be falling apart when well done. The meat fibres tighten when cooked, but if you leave them a little while to rest they relax again and this makes the meat more tender.
I suspect if you want to hide the meat, then small amounts of ground meat is probably your best bet as others have said. and spicy international foods like Mexican, Moroccan, Indian, Scottish (*)

* Well Haggis is pretty spicy, although I'd increase the barley and add beans and lentils to dilute the meat down for you. This is one vegetarian haggis recipe as a starting point. I would suggest add the same amount of ground meat as peas or barley.

Something I really like to make with chicken is something like Chicken A La King served on toast.  

Chcken, gravy, mixed vegetables or just carrots served on a slice of 100% whole wheat bread.

I am a big fan of open-faced sandwiches since I had a roast beef at a restaurant years ago.

These are great for using leftovers.

You said you may have trouble digesting meat. Someone on rabbit talk also claimed inability to digest meat but discovered rabbit meat she could eat without problem. If you can find a source it may help you. Domestic rabbit is kind of like turkey only better. My favorite! Grand daughter has been told by doctors she lacks enzymes to digest meat, but is still in " never eat meat again" mode so can't get her to try my delicious rabbits . I like to slow roast in oven, but have also ground for sausage, meatballs . Shredded for tamales,sliced thin put in stir fry...good luck

Diane Woiak wrote: Someone on rabbit talk also claimed inability to digest meat but discovered rabbit meat she could eat without problem. If you can find a source it may help you...

I soooo... wish people around my area would discover rabbit as a source of food. We have a steadily increasing feral domestic rabbit problem. They come is so many different colours as  well, I can just picture their fur as clothing. Why is it that we decided rabbits and deer were cute, but not cows?

So to tenderize meat you want to use what's called an acid food.

Some common ones are tomatoes, wine/beer, citrus juice, or fruits (peaches, pineapple, apples).

A few things have enzymes in them that tenderize, specifically papaya and yogurt.

To make it soft, you can use the sous vide, or make a soup/stew or braise (like a pot roast) in your oven or a slow cooker.

And before you go thinking I'm nuts for suggesting with fruit or meat with yogurt I'd like to point out duck a l'orange, tandoori, and pork and apple sausage ;)

The tomatoes aren't as much of a stretch for most people (pasta sauce with meat, chili).

I think these also have the advantage of bringing in other non-meat flavors that you wanted?

Cat Knight wrote: A few things have enzymes in them that tenderize, specifically papaya and yogurt.

Very good point Cat! Both Kiwi fruit and Pineapple will digest the inside of a person's mouth if they overdo eating them. I have a muffin recipe that calls for Pineapple. If we use it, we have to refrigerate them, as they simply won't last, whereas if I substitute chunks of apple, they can sit on the counter just fine.

I've experienced the same with breast milk, when I mixed it with baby food for my kids, but that's not as easy to source as Pineapple and kiwi! However, that might suggest that unprocessed milk would help if you soaked the meat in it for a day. I'm sure there's a name for that, but it escapes me at the moment.

Jay Angler wrote:
that might suggest that unprocessed milk would help if you soaked the meat in it for a day. I'm sure there's a name for that, but it escapes me at the moment.

Lactic acid? But there are a ton of OLD recipes for pork braised in milk...

I was raised eating a lot of venison, and some of it was tough. Mom soaked the tough stuff in pineapple juice at least overnight, then put it in the crock pot, still with the juice.

Thank you, good ideas.

Well, Pearl, you seem to have hit on the solution all on your own: If you do not care for the meat flavor, you may need to cut the meat very small so you don't have much chewing to do, and add lots of your favorite spices, and at first, more veggies than meat.
If this type of protein is difficult for you to digest, egg whites are one of the purest proteins to digest. There too, you can do the huevos rancheros by adding tomatoes. Cheeses are also a way to add protein. How about yogurt? [I'm crazy about cheeses: I could practically live on it!]
If you have been for a long time without meat, perhaps your system has lost the ability to process it? In this case, go slow, until you regain some pleasure from eating it.
How about fish? or shrimp?
Lots of luck to you: food problems are no fun to deal with: I had a motorcycle accident that almost took my leg: It had to be debrided every day from mid-June to July 4th, when the doctor was able to put a cast on it. [The leg was broken in 8 places]. Since they had to put me under for the debriding, I could not really eat and I totally lost my appetite. I sobbed when the nurse came to ask me what I wanted to eat. I said: I'm so sorry... don't take it personally, but I hate you. I know I should not, but I really do not want to eat and I know that you are going to try and push some food on me... She was so sweet. I felt really bad, but the experience of being operated on every day really messed up with my appetite.
Unfortunately, I have totally regained my appetite since then, and then some!

Add me to the former vegs now eating meat.  I tend to buy ground beef a lot, both because it's cheaper (usually), but also because it contains some of the connective tissue, which, apparently, we need, because the amino acid composition is different, and most people only eat muscle meats sans connective tissue (boneless, skinless chicken breast, for example).

I play with it the same way I play with vegetables:  it's all about the seasonings.

Use the herbs and spices you would use for a vegetarian dish.
    Mexican:  oregano, cilantro, cumin, chilies, paprika
    Greek:  oregano, parsley, cinnamon, mint, garlic
     Japanese:  soy sauce, mirin (or something sweet), ginger, garlic
    Thai:  lemongrass, galangal, ginger, chilies, kaffir lime rind and leaves, lime juice
    Italian:  parsley, oregano, basil, tomato, garlic, rosemary
    Cajun:  black pepper, chilies, paprika, celery, bell pepper, carrots
     etc.
General good for whatever:  garlic, onion, paprika, parsley, a touch of cumin and cayenne, some herbs or citrus rind
   
And I am loving the slow cooker, because it uses less electricity than my stove, keeping my bills lower, plus I can go work outside while I'm cooking, without worrying about burning anything.

You do need to get a feel for how long to cook vegetables and meats, though.  This way, however, I can also use organ meats and tongue, which are cheaper but tougher.  Tongue ends up like shredded pork in texture.  Even with supply chain issues, when the local store runs out of other meats, there is usually beef heart or tongue left for sale.  Great!

To mask the taste of liver or heart, I like pastrami spices.

Any recipe I usually double the spices, because the slow cooker tends to cook them to death.  I also cut the liquid down to nothing, most of the time, or at least, way way back.

A splash of vinegar or other acid, such as citrus juice, will do wonders to perk up kind of meh flavors (the crockpot can tend to make things take rather flat).

Vegetables tend to cook into mush, so this works best with meat or stews and soups where you don't care if the vegetables cook to mush.  I also love to blend the vegetables and spices into a paste, then throw that in with the meat, like making curry, for example.

Forgot to add that digestion is definitely an issue as we get older.  Some people take hydrochloric acid and pepsin or other digestive enzyme supplements.  Some drink apple cider vinegar in water.  Some just add vinegar to their food.

Also, you need adequate protein in order to make digestive enzymes and hydrochloric acid, so we former vegetarians may need to be extra careful of our intake, from what I understand.  I'm absolutely certain I was protein insufficient for many years as a vegetarian.

Alina Green wrote:Forgot to add that digestion is definitely an issue as we get older.  Some people take hydrochloric acid and pepsin or other digestive enzyme supplements.  Some drink apple cider vinegar in water.  Some just add vinegar to their food.

Also, you need adequate protein in order to make digestive enzymes and hydrochloric acid, so we former vegetarians may need to be extra careful of our intake, from what I understand.  I'm absolutely certain I was protein insufficient for many years as a vegetarian.

The albumen in eggs [the egg white] is very digestible. That might bring up your protein levels. Also, as a 75 yr old with osteoarthritis, I've started taking as a supplement: Collagen.
CVS is my local pharmacy, so this is their advice, and no, I have no connection with CVS. There are many different types of collagen, from either animal or lab source.
I have noticed that I have less join pain from taking collagen peptides.
This is one of their pages:
https://www.cvs.com/shop/vitamins/supplements/collagen?page=2
I hope you can find what you need. Take care.