Looking for aged beef with mold
Every once in awhile I get a restaurant question that stumps me. This e-mail arrived today from Sarann:
I hope you can help. We were told of a steak house in Baltimore that serves aged beef. The steaks are shown with the mold on them and you can pick your own. Do you know of a place like this? I would be grateful for any information. ...
As a matter of fact, I don't. There are certainly steak houses that serve aged beef, but beyond that...
Given how squeamish some people are around here, I can't see this being a successful concept in the Baltimore area, but maybe I'm wrong.
The last restaurant where I was shown the raw beef (as well as raw potatoes and heads of broccoli) was Morton's the Steakhouse. But there wasn't any mold.
The only place I can even imagine its being done was McCafferty's in Mt. Washington, now gone. It aged its beef at the restaurant, as I remember.
Maybe she's thinking of a restaurant that isn't primarily a steak house.
Comments
sounds like someone who doesnt know what they are talking about, or were told by someone who actually was served an aged steak with mold on it (gross). Agend steak never should have mold. Maybe I dont know about this new trend, but if it's real, count me out.
moldy cheese is yummy though
Posted by: Anonymous | October 26, 2009 4:12 PM
dry aged beef
www.rosedabeef.com
www.hickorychance.com/beef_primer.html
as to restaurants... I think it became unavailable at about the same time as caesar salad became taboo
Posted by: MrRational | October 26, 2009 5:54 PM
As a big fan of the Hickory Chance beef, I've never seen any mold on it.
Sounds a lot more like something that would happen in NYC, not Baltimore.
Posted by: Lissa | October 26, 2009 7:45 PM
I'm with Lissa. Since I try to be fair to our two Harford County purveyors (Hickory Chance and Deer Creek Beef), I tend to buy ground beef, brisket and skirt steaks from the latter, but loin cut steaks and roasts from the former.
I've seen the beef behind the cases at Ceriello's, and every once in a while you'll see a piece in the upper back that gets a little funky crust on it. I hope they do that on purpose.
Posted by: The Canon | October 26, 2009 9:03 PM
This sounds like a made up thing. I'm pretty sure any type of moldy meat will make one sick, especially one that's cooked medium rare.
However, I'm very happy that I now have a company to contact regarding the stained carpet in my vacation home in Phoenix.
Posted by: Lee Biars | October 26, 2009 11:11 PM
Spam at 10:42.
There are several sausages that get mold on the outside as they age. I believe that dry cured meat can get a moldy crust. But, it is cut off.
Posted by: Lissa | October 27, 2009 2:19 AM
Aged beef is trimmed of it's moldy crust before cooking, DUH:
>The process of dry-aging usually also promotes growth of certain fungal (mold) species on the external surface of the meat. This doesn't cause spoilage, but actually forms an external "crust" on the meat's surface, which is trimmed off when the meat is prepared for cooking
Posted by: hon | October 27, 2009 9:40 AM
Capital Grill dry ages their beef and some are on display.
Posted by: Jason | October 27, 2009 9:50 AM