Why I watch cooking videos about meat as a vegetarian
I have been a vegetarian for 9 years. I love to cook. I also love to watch what I call “Food YouTube”, which includes a variety of food content creators including the Babish Culinary Universe, America’s Test Kitchen, Joshua Weissman, Adam Ragusea, and so many more.
I watch a variety of videos, not just ones that cater to or focus on vegetarian cooking. Cooking to me is a larger approach to food that encompasses a lot of ingredients, cuisines, techniques, and concepts. There is always a lot to learn, even if the specific thing is not something you would do yourself.
For example, I watched this video from ATK that is titled “Why You Should Be Cooking Your Steak In The Oven.” From title alone, it would seem that this video is not geared towards me. However, not only am I intellectually curious about cooking and the science of food in general, this video also has a ton of great information about things other than the steak.
Describes the aspects of a sheet pan that are important, including how much browning should be on your pan
Covers the concept of adding food to the heat in order of how long it will take to cook so that everything is done at the same time
How to prep scallions for roasting whole
Explains the role of different ingredients such as using brown sugar to promote browning and using coffee to add bitterness and balance the sweetness
Introduces the idea that the rub could be used on different types of proteins, making this less of a strict recipe and more of a concept
Moisture is the enemy of browning!
How to slice/prep radishes
The few aspects that were specific to the meat were to ensure you coat all sides with the rub, cook to a certain temperature for medium rare, rest the meat, then slice against the grain. As a percentage of the video, these steps were a few sentences at most.
There is so much to cooking that crosses over between meat and non-meat dishes, such as the concept that moisture is the enemy of browning. It doesn’t matter if it’s chicken, steak, tofu, peppers, or eggplant, the first step is to drive out excess moisture, then you can finally brown the ingredient to get the extra flavor from the Maillard reaction.
I will also use a meat version of a dish to inform how I might make a meatless version of the dish. I will cover this more in my Vegetize It! series, but knowing the core features of a meat-based dish will help me decide which substitutions to use and why. I may never make the dish as written, but if the overall flavors are good, it should be relatively easy to adapt it to a vegetarian diet.
Another benefit of learning about how to cook meat is knowing when it’s not being done well. For example, pretty much this entire video.
5:38 - The lobsters were not killed in the standard humane practice of cutting straight into their head and down through the face.
7:44 - Why would you buy expensive jumbo scallops if all you’re going to do is cut them in half? Just buy cheaper bay scallops. Or, learn how to cook jumbo scallops properly.
I’m no seafood expert, but pretty sure everything so far has been overcooked.
9:28 - Why are they cutting that gorgeous steak like that? Oh wait, so they can squish it down on the grill? WTF?
12:34 - Again with the squishing? Why???
More overcooked meat
14:29 - Noooo…. not the onion volcanco….
Well, I guess they can’t mess up seafood broth. Sigh.
I know places like that are more for the theater than the food, but if you think that something like that is high end quality food, then you are mistaken. The over-reliance on small pieces that cook quickly in extremely high heat is going to leave you disappointed.
All in all, I enjoy watching cooking videos of all kinds. You pick up on a lot of things that can be applicable in your cooking, even if it’s not a specific dish you would make. Building up a background knowledge about food will help you create tasty food that you have fun making. I know I’ve benefitted from watching a variety of videos about a variety of things. Hope you expand your viewing selection to include things you wouldn’t necessarily make. You just might learn something. :)
