Can all kinds of beef be served raw?

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kenny1999

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Will it depend on the sources or origins of the beef? I don't normally eat raw but I don't like to cook beef fully. Is it safe for most beef to be undercooked?
 
Depends on the processing plants they come from. And definitely never undercook ground beef, unless you grind it yourself.
 
Even when you grind it yourself you are grinding a lot of bacteria into the finished product.
I saw a video, probably linked from here, where the guy took a chunk of beef and dropped it into boiling water for 10 seconds to kill the surface microbes. Then he ground it.
 
When you grind it at home, at least you are grinding in bacteria that you are used to, i.e. that already in your kitchen. I've made tartare a couple of times using home ground meat, or taking the time to dice it small, but for some reason tartare is not my cup of tea. Probably because I used to assist in surgeries and it reminds me too much of tissue. As far as other uses, the ground beef is cooked and I don't eat burgers that have more than the barest hint of pink in them because of the above.

We make beef carpaccio once in a while and I do really like that. I use rib eye or tenderloin or sometimes eye of round. The cut is frozen for about 20 minutes and then I cut it either by hand with a sharp filet knife and then poubd some or I use our electric meat slicer. I do marinate it in a mixture that includes an acid like lemon or lime juice, sometimes balsamic, for at least an hour, but that's all I do and we've never gotten sick.
 
I adore beef tartar. But I'm scared to prepare it myself.
And you would trust a restaurant to make it for you?

I used to eat raw beef while my Mom was making things, and she'd slap be, and tell me I could get sick. This was long before we would hear about people dying, sometimes a number of them, from some bad strain of E. coli in some ground meat, from some meat processing plant in particular. I have been grinding my own meat for many years, and just rinse the meat off, and dry it, before cutting into chunks to grind. And something I learned when I first started grinding - how much fat is in store-bought ground beef! I read somewhere that I had to add 10% of the fat I trimmed off the meat back into the lean meat (which, of course, still had some fat), or it would be too "dry". Yet when I cooked the meat in a pot, when making some meat sauce, or a chili, it would be totally dry, and no fat cooked out! Yet the "92% lean" beef that I'd buy, still had some fat cook out. What does this tell you about those percentages they give on the meat?

I haven't eaten any raw for a long time, but another thing about having to grind it yourself is the fat content. You basically have to remove as much as you can, since when eating it raw, that fat will give like a waxy feeling in your mouth, which is not a good thing.

I've always liked very rare beef, and with burgers, I have to grind it myself, as I won't make rare ones with store-bought.
 
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I have wondered if one could sous-vide ground beef burgers to the point of being pasteurized and then sear them.
 
what is the temperature required to pasteurize ground beef?
It's a balance between temperature and time. I haven't found a reliable source for pasteurization temps and times for ground beef. According to this site,
For beef steak,

Sous-vide time and temperature beef with a thickness of 25 mm:​


  • 55 °C for 2 hours and 45 minutes
  • 57 °C for 1 hour and 50 minutes
  • 60°C for 1 hour and 20 minutes
 
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