50 Fun Facts About Steak

A long-told but false legend claims that an English king once knighted which cut of steak?

Sirloin really comes from the Old French surlonge, meaning above the loin. The knighting pun was in print by 1630, and versions of the tale credit at least three different kings.

A raw steak is red not because of blood but because of which protein found in the animal's muscles?

Myoglobin, not blood, gives raw meat its colour. Heat changes the protein as a steak cooks, which is why the meat turns from red to pink to brown.

Outback Steakhouse, the Australian-themed casual dining chain, was founded not in Australia but in which US state?

Florida is where Outback Steakhouse began, with a first restaurant in Tampa in 1988. Behind the Australian theme, the menu is American cuisine.

Which dish of finely chopped raw beef, usually topped with a raw egg yolk, was originally named for its sauce?

Steak tartare was first called steak à la tartare, meaning served with tartar sauce. By 1938 Larousse Gastronomique described it with a raw egg yolk and no mention of the sauce.

Pat and Harry Olivieri are credited with inventing which sandwich at their 1930s hot dog stand near the Italian Market?

Cheesesteak lore says the first version had no cheese at all, just chopped beef and grilled onions on a roll. By the family's account, the cheese arrived about two decades later.

Which word, literally meaning 'Japanese cattle', covers four beef breeds including the heavily marbled Japanese Black?

Wagyu is not one breed but a label for four, and the Japanese Black makes up more than 90% of them. Regional names such as Matsusaka and Ōmi are brands, not extra breeds.

Which is the highest of the eight USDA quality grades for beef, given to carcasses with the most fat marbling?

Prime sits at the top of the USDA scale, above Choice and Select. Graders judge two things: how much fat is marbled through the meat and how young the animal was.

Which steak, called fillet steak in Britain, is cut from the tenderloin's thin end and means pork on French menus?

Filet mignon translates roughly as delicate or dainty fillet. In France the same words usually point to pork or veal tenderloin, while the beef cut goes by filet de bœuf.

Texas Roadhouse, despite the name over the door, opened its very first steakhouse in which US state?

Indiana, not Texas, is where the chain began, at a mall in the town of Clarksville in 1993. Louisville, Kentucky, lies just across the Ohio River.

Which false claim about searing meat did the chemist Justus von Liebig put forward around 1850?

The idea that it seals in the juices is a myth: seared meat loses more moisture than unseared meat cooked to the same temperature. The browned crust is still worth having for its flavour.

By USDA specification, which steak needs a tenderloin at least 1.25 inches wide, more than double a T-bone's minimum?

Porterhouse steaks come from the rear of the short loin, where the tenderloin is at its widest. A T-bone is the same idea cut closer to the front, so its tender side is smaller.

Which boneless steak, known as Scotch fillet in Australia and New Zealand, is the official state steak of Oklahoma?

Ribeye is a boneless steak from the rib section, and butchers call its main muscle the eye. A second muscle along the edge, the spinalis, is nicknamed the cap.

The strip steak is most often named in America after which city, where Delmonico's restaurant opened in 1827?

New York lent its name to the strip steak because Delmonico's made a short loin cut one of its signature dishes. The same steak is also sold as a Kansas City steak or an ambassador steak.

Which steak earned the nickname butcher's steak because butchers often kept it for themselves rather than sell it?

Hanger steak was once rarely put out for sale, which is how the nickname stuck. Anatomically it is the crura, or legs, of the diaphragm, and it also goes by the French name onglet.

Tex-Mex fajitas take their name from the little strips of which beef cut that originally filled them?

Skirt steak was the original fajita: the name is a diminutive of faja, Spanish for strip or belt. Chicken, shrimp and vegetable fillings all came later.

Santa Maria-style barbecue in California centres on which beef cut, the local meat of choice since the 1950s?

Tri-tip became the meat of choice for Santa Maria cooks once it appeared in the 1950s, grilled slowly over red oak coals. Before then they used large chunks of a different cut.

Which fat-capped beef cut, called rump cap in Britain and coulotte in America, first became popular in Brazil?

Picanha is the triangular end of a rump muscle, sold together with its thick cap of fat. After Brazil, the cut caught on in Portugal.

Which rib steak is sold with at least five inches of cleaned rib bone still attached?

Tomahawk steaks are rib steaks whose bone has been french-trimmed, meaning stripped clean, and left long. The name comes from the Native American axe the finished cut resembles.

Chateaubriand steak is named after François-René de Chateaubriand, a French nobleman who made his name in which field?

Literature made the vicomte de Chateaubriand famous, though he also worked as a politician and diplomat. His chef, Montmireil, is often credited with creating the dish for him.

Which shoulder steak, called butlers' steak in Britain, grew out of a 1998 American beef industry drive to cut waste?

Flat iron steak is cut with the grain from the chuck, and researchers developed it when beef was selling at a steep discount. British butchers also call it feather steak.

Steak Diane shares its name with Diana, the Roman goddess of what?

The hunt was Diana's domain, and Escoffier gave the name Diane to a peppery cream sauce for venison. How the name reached a pan-fried beef steak is still argued over.

Steak au poivre is a French dish in which the meat is coated before cooking with which coarsely cracked spice?

Peppercorns form a crust on the steak as it cooks and give a pungent contrast to the beef. The pan is often finished with cognac and cream to make a sauce.

Salisbury steak is named after James Salisbury, an American who pushed a meat-heavy fad diet while working as what?

Physician and chemist James Salisbury argued that a diet centred on meat, with few vegetables, promoted health. His name has been attached to the ground beef patty since 1897.

Beef Wellington wraps a fillet of beef and mushroom duxelles in which casing before it goes into the oven?

Puff pastry is the standard wrapping, though some cooks swap in shortcrust. The link to the Duke of Wellington is only presumed, because nobody has shown how the dish got its name.

Which Italian city gives its name to a thick T-bone, traditionally from Chianina cattle, that is grilled until rare?

Florence is honoured in the dish's Italian name, bistecca alla fiorentina, one of the most famous plates in Tuscan cooking. The loin steak is cooked on the bone and served rare.

Steak frites is a brasserie staple in France, but which neighbouring country claims to be the dish's birthplace?

Belgium claims steak frites as its own, and some consider it the country's national dish. The plate is exactly what the name says: a steak with a pile of fried potatoes.

A carpetbag steak, once a luxury dish in Australia, has a pocket cut into it and stuffed with which shellfish?

Oysters go into the pocket, which is then closed with toothpicks or thread before grilling. Where the dish began is disputed, with claims for both South Wales and the United States.

The steakhouse main course surf and turf, also called reef and beef, most classically pairs steak with which seafood?

Lobster with a tender fillet is the standard pairing, though prawns or scallops often stand in. The phrase surf and turf is first known in print from 1961, in the Los Angeles Times.

Which Italian opera composer gives his name to a tournedos dish topped with foie gras and slices of black truffle?

Gioachino Rossini lends his name to a small round steak that is sautéed in butter and served on a crouton. The plate is finished with a sauce based on Madeira wine.

The browned crust on a seared steak comes from which process between amino acids and sugars, first described in 1912?

The Maillard reaction is named after French chemist Louis Camille Maillard, who was trying to reproduce protein synthesis when he described it. It gets going quickly from about 140 °C.

Which process leaves beef on a rack for weeks, forming a mouldy outer crust that is trimmed away before cooking?

Dry aging concentrates flavour as moisture leaves the meat, which can lose a third of its weight. Wet-aged beef, by contrast, rests in a vacuum bag and keeps its moisture.

On the usual steak doneness scale, which colour names the extra-rare level, one step less cooked than rare?

Blue, or bleu in French, sits below rare on the scale: the inside stays very red and reaches only about 46 to 49 °C. French kitchens call rare saignant.

Which American city names a steak charred outside but rare inside, a style one story credits to mill workers?

Pittsburgh rare steaks are heated very hot and very fast. In one telling, local steel workers with only 30 minutes for lunch needed high-calorie food in a hurry.

Which French-named method cooks a steak inside a plastic pouch in a precisely heated water bath, often for hours?

Sous vide is French for under vacuum, and chef Georges Pralus is credited with inventing the method in 1974. Packing food under vacuum began in the 1960s as an industrial way to preserve it.

The English word steak traces back to which language's verb steikja, meaning to roast on a stake?

Old Norse passed the word to English through a Scandinavian term, steik, in the mid-15th century. That makes steak a relative of the words stick and stake.

Chimichurri, the uncooked parsley, garlic and oregano sauce spooned over grilled steak, originated in which country?

Argentina is where chimichurri was first found, and it spread through Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil to most of Latin America. Cooks use it both as an ingredient and as a table condiment.

Béarnaise, the butter and egg yolk sauce traditional with steak, is flavoured with shallot, pepper and which herb?

Tarragon is what separates béarnaise from its parent sauce, hollandaise. Swap the herb for mint and the result is called sauce Paloise.

Which brown sauce, based on an 1824 recipe by a chef to King George IV, was later marketed in America for steak?

A.1.'s story began with Henderson William Brand, and the sauce went on sale in England in 1831 for fish, meat, fowl and game. Its present name dates from 1873, after a trademark dispute.

Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce, a seasoning in classic steak Diane, includes which small fish among its ingredients?

Anchovies are on the label of Lea & Perrins, the brand that first sold a sauce under the Worcestershire name in 1837. Vegetarian versions leave the fish out.

Authentic Kobe beef must come from Tajima-strain cattle raised in which Japanese prefecture around the city of Kobe?

Hyōgo is the only prefecture whose Tajima cattle can carry the Kobe name, under rules set by a marketing association. The beef was imported into the United States after a ban on Japanese beef was relaxed in 2012.

Ruth's Chris Steak House got its name after Ruth Fertel mortgaged her home to buy Chris Steak House in which city?

New Orleans had known Chris Steak House since 1927, and Fertel bought it in 1965 against the advice of her banker and lawyer. Her own name joined the title in 1976.

The Big Texan Steak Ranch, where a 72-ounce steak dinner is free if eaten within an hour, stands in which Texas city?

Amarillo has been home to the restaurant since 1960, when it stood on Route 66. Winners must also finish a shrimp cocktail, a baked potato, a salad and a bread roll.

England's Sublime Society of Beef Steaks, founded in a theatre in 1735, wore which cooking tool on its buttons?

A gridiron appeared on members' brass buttons beside the motto Beef and liberty. Later dining clubs copied the emblem, and the Gridiron Club of Washington, D.C. took its name as well.

Nusret Gökçe, the butcher who became the internet meme Salt Bae for the way he salts a steak, comes from which country?

Turkey is the home of the butcher, chef and restaurateur, whose 2017 clips drew millions of views. The nickname came from his habit of letting salt run from his fingertips down his forearm.

Which naturally hornless beef breed, solid black or red, takes its name from a county in north-eastern Scotland?

Angus cattle were once known locally as Angus Doddies, doddie meaning hornless, and the breed was officially recognised in 1835. Its full name also honours neighbouring Aberdeen.

Which Canadian city gives its name to a steak seasoning born from the pickling spices of its smoked meat delis?

Montreal deli Schwartz's is credited with the blend. The story goes that a broilerman nicknamed The Shadow began rubbing the deli's pickling spices on his own steaks in the 1940s and 1950s.

Which European capital names a North American dish of marinated, grilled flank steak cut into thin strips?

London broil began as a name for grilled flank steak, but butchers now put the label on top round and other cuts. It has become a way of cooking more than a cut of meat.

Since Alan Shepard's flight in 1961, which meal has been the traditional launch-day breakfast for NASA astronauts?

Steak and eggs is what Alan Shepard ate on the morning of his flight, and crews kept up the ritual. The same meal is the customary pre-landing breakfast of the US Marine Corps.

The Ponderosa steakhouse chain and its sister brand both took their names from which long-running American TV western?

Bonanza was set at a place called the Ponderosa Ranch, which handed the steakhouses both of their names. The first restaurant opened in Westport, Connecticut, in 1963.

Which organ meat joins diced beef in a classic British steak pie, a pairing whose first printed recipe was Mrs Beeton's?

Kidney and steak first shared a published recipe in 1859, in Mrs Beeton's Household Management, though she put them in a pudding. Before then the norm was steak puddings and kidney pies.