Product Review

Oven roasted scotch fillet steak with cheesy creamy vegetables Meater review

Oven roasted scotch fillet steak with cheesy creamy vegetables

MEATER® review

[maxbutton id=”12″ url=”#photographs” ] [maxbutton id=”11″ url=”#questions-and-answers” ]

At the beginning of every January, Trevor Long, Chris Bowen and Geoff Quattromani from the EFTM podcast make their annual pilgrimage to CES in Las Vegas. EFTM is a technology, motor car and lifestyle podcast primarily aimed at blokes. It’s not safe for work (NSFW), it’s not safe for kids to listen to, and, it is very blokey. While at CES Geoff wrote a review of the MEATER®️ meat thermometer on the EFTM website.

This is a photograph of my scotch fillet steak cooked rare with the cheesy creamy horseradish flavoured vegetables in a dish. The meat is cut and obviously rare.

While I own and use very basic meat thermometers, using one requires opening and closing the oven door multiples times. I prefer not to open the door until the food is ready. The Bluetooth and wireless capability of the MEATER®️ meat thermometer sounded like a good solution. It would mean I could cook meat for the right period of time without overcooking the flesh.

I went to the MEATER®️ website and looked through all the information and decided to buy one. The manufacturers have an Australian agent and as soon as I completed the order I received an e-mail explaining the product was ordered but there would be a slight delay. About a week later I received another e-mail informing me of another slight delay. All in all, the total waiting time was about a month. This didn’t really worry me and I was grateful for the regular updates.

When my new MEATER®️ meat thermometer arrived at my post office box, I was really impressed with the no-frills packaging. It gave me the feeling of a precision instrument.

This is a photograph of the MEATER® in its box

I’ve used my MEATER®️ meat thermometer about half a dozen times now in chicken (Maryland pieces), beef (scotch fillet steak) and pork (chops). It’s been brilliant. The meat has been cooked well and each meal has been distinguished by moist, tender and juicy animal flesh. I’m yet to try lamb, but I can’t imagine there will be any problems.

The iOS app works well and I’ve not experienced any Bluetooth connection problems. On Instagram and Twitter search for #meatermade to get an idea of the sorts of meals, people are cooking with their MEATER®️ meat thermometer. After each meal is cooked, I get an e-mail survey asking me how my meal was. I’ll probably turn this feature off when the novelty wears off. Notifications in the app work well and five minutes (this can be adjusted) before the end of the cooking time a tone is emitted and it gives you enough time to prepare to get the meat out and to allow the meat to rest.

This is a screenshot from the MEATER® iOS app of tonight's cook.

Leave the MEATER®️ meat thermometer in the meat until resting is complete and then simply wash it in warm soapy water. It comes in a wooden box which houses an AAA battery which charges the probe before each use.

This is a photograph of the box which my MEATER® came in.

Recipe

Oven roasted scotch fillet steak with cheesy creamy vegetables
Prep Time
10 mins
Cook Time
30 mins
Total Time
40 mins
 
Oven roasted scotch fillet steak using the MEATER®️ meat thermometer to achieve a perfect medium rare steak which I served with some cheesy creamy vegetables.
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: Australian
Servings: 1
Calories: 500 kcal
Author: Gary
Ingredients
  • 1 Scotch fillet steak seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic powder and vacuum packed.
  • Broccoli
  • Cauliflower
  • Peas
  • Corn
  • Cream
  • Cheese grated
  • Horseradish cream
Instructions
  1. Pat the steak dry and season both sides with iodised salt, black pepper and garlic powder.
  2. Vacuum pack and refrigerate overnight.
    This is a photograph of the seasoned scotch fillet steak in its vacuum packing.
  3. Remove the steak from the refrigerator an hour before cooking to get it to room temperature.
    This is a photograph of the scotch fillet steak with the MEATER® inserted
  4. Insert the MEATER®️ meat thermometer into the steak and place on a baking sheet.
  5. Place the steak into a preheated oven (200 °C/400 °F).

  6. Cook using the MEATER®️ App.
  7. Rest the meat as per the app.
  8. While the steak was cooking put the broccoli, cauliflower, peas and corn into a microwave radiation safe container and cook using microwave radiation until the broccoli is soft.
  9. Drain the vegetables and put them in an ovenproof dish with some cream and cheese.
  10. When the steak and Brussels sprouts are removed from the oven, put the vegetables into the oven, turn the heat up to high to brown the cheese.
  11. Sear the steak with a torch or use a hot frying pan or if you want the best, go outside and use a flamethrower.
    This is a photograph of the rare scotch fillet steak which I've cut into slices.
  12. Serve the steak and vegetables on a plate.
    This is a photograph of my scotch fillet steak cooked rare with the cheesy creamy horseradish flavoured vegetables in a dish. The meat is cut and obviously rare.
  13. Shoot a photograph.
  14. Savour the meal.
  15. Write the recipe.
  16. Write the blog post.
  17. Hope your readers will share the post on social media.
Recipe Notes

I do not work out, look up or calculate the energy content of my meals. In this recipe plugin I have to add a figure, so I default to 500 Calories (500,000 calories).

Photographs

As well as some photographs of dishes I’ve previously cooked using the MEATER®.

Click on one image and then scroll through all the photographs.

Questions and answers

What’s the advantage of using a meat thermometer?

The most important reason is food safety. You do not want to undercook your meat. This is especially true for poultry. Always shop, prepare and cook with an assumption in your head that every chicken, duck, turkey and goose contains Salmonella and Campylobacter in its main cavity. Given the proximity of the main body cavity with the major cut of flesh, bacterial contamination is really easy.

For chicken, you want the internal temperature to get to about 75 °C/167 °F.

For mammals, most cuts are large muscle bundles and are effectively isolated from the body cavities. Mammal meat is relatively safe when it comes to pathogenic bacteria assuming the meat processing and butchering have been managed safely.

Because, most mammalian meat is best eaten rare or bordering on medium rare, precise temperature measurement is an advantage. Hence, the advantage of a meat thermometer.

What’s your favourite cut of beef?

There’s a lot of argument on what makes a good steak. In my find, a good steak tastes beefy and it is tender. The best compromise for pan frying in my limited experience is scotch fillet or rib eye fillet steak.

The flavour though of porterhouse or rump cap is really rich and if I could cook that so it was tender I’d be really happy.

There may be a change on that front soon. I’ve purchased a water recirculator and I’m going to experiment with sous vide cooking.

Should you use a steak knife when eating steak?

OMG, yes. Cutting steak effectively and efficiently adds to the whole eating experience. While you can cut a properly cooked steak with a butter knife, why would you? A well-weighted steak knife makes all the difference. A well-balanced steak knife is a thing of beauty. A well-made steak knife is a tool to treasure, protect and maintain.

You seem to like the MEATER®️ meat thermometer. Were you paid by them for this review?

No, Yummy Lummy currently receives no sponsorship or financial support. If MEATER®️ wants to send me products to try, I’m happy to discuss an opportunity.

Update (Tuesday, 13 February, 2018)

I was asked about the price of the MEATER®, I was able to buy it on-line in January 2018 for AUD$129.

Final words

So I’ve dipped my toes back into podcasting. I recently closed off my health and medical podcast so I can now focus entirely on food blogging.

I will be recording and dropping a regular weekly show soon. It will be called, “The Yummy Lummy Cooking for one podcast.”

What I’ve done recently is start a super short random show named, “Random Yummy.” I’ve dropped two shows so far. You can find them at:

https://YummyLummy.com/RY0001

https://YummyLummy.com/RY0002

Let me know what you think.

So dear reader, do you regularly use a meat thermometer? Let me know in the comments section below.

Welcome to spring with Australian asparagus #aussiespears

Through the good services of Bizzy Lizzie who administrates the Canberra Food Bloggers Facebook group some of us elected to receive a gift of fresh asparagus from the Australian Asparagus Council. I received a small box today with half a dozen bunches of asparagus including some baby asparagus.

Australian Asparagus Council asparagus parcel.
Australian Asparagus Council asparagus parcel.
Australian Asparagus Council asparagus parcel.
Asparagus parcel.

In the parcel was an ice brick, a new tea towel wrapping the bundles of asparagus and a salad cup. The salad cup was a nice touch. I read the instructions and it’s a little complicated. If I was really into salad and was willing to make a salad dressing it would be a great lunch container. It has inside compartments for salad pieces of different densities. It also has a little sealable cylinder for salad dressing.

Australian Asparagus Council asparagus parcel.

I like that there were bunches of baby asparagus too.

Australian Asparagus Council media release

Australian Asparagus Council asparagus parcel.

Australian Asparagus Council media release

If you want to download the PDF for this media release to keep click 2015-09-01 Media Release Australian Asparagus Council.

Australian Asparagus Council asparagus parcel.
Australian Asparagus Council asparagus parcel.

I posted a few photographs on Instagram and Facebook using the tag #aussiespears and it was good to check out other recipients social media feeds.

For dinner I made a dish of baked skinless chicken thigh with hot and spicy balsamic asparagus with sweet potato chips and honey steamed vegetables.

Baked skinless chicken thigh with Australian Asparagus Council Asparagus, sweet potato and honey steamed vegetables.
Baked skinless chicken thigh with asparagus, sweet potato and honey steamed vegetables.

Other than the gift of the free asparagus, tea towell and the salad cup I have not been remunerated in any way to write this post.

 

Why I’m using Google Photos for my blog photo gallery

This is not a food post per se. One of the things about blogging, especially for blogs with lots of photographs is a desire on the part of the blogger to present their images in the best way possible. For a long time I’ve tried about a handful of gallery plugins hoping to get something that would approach the way Squarespace renders images in full size and across the display of any device whether it be a desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone.

I could move to Squarespace but I’m heavily invested in WordPress.org and I really like using WordPress.org

Recently Google+ spun off Google Photos as a separate tool and in my opinion it’s doing almost everything I want.

So why do I like Google Photos?

  1. The photographs look good
  2. One click to full size
  3. Click the “open information” icon (top right corner, it is a letter i in a circle) and the relevant metadata comes up including a Google map (If the GPS coordinates have been included and exported).
  4. I can search my Google Photos catalog and make an instant gallery, e.g., I searched marmalade and this is what I got https://goo.gl/photos/vF5mDUufswwgsKUbA
  5. You can see photographs associated with a location
  6. You can see ‘things’ that Google ascribes a descriptor for, e.g., Birds Check out this gallery to see how accurately Google Photos identifies birds.
  7. I can capture images with my smartphone and it goes to Google Photos and from within Google Photos I can open the image in Snapseed and edit the image to my liking.
  8. I also use Adobe Lightroom and I can simply export JPGs to a DropBox folder which is also connected to the Google Photos uploader so that as soon as files are dropped into that folder they are automatically (assuming I’m connected to the Internet) uploaded to my Google Photos account and immediately available for social media sharing or sharing on my blogs.

There are also some quirks. For example, some of my photographs were ascribed to Brussels. Now if you now me and read this blog you know where I’m going with this…

Okay so this is a short post and I wanted to explain why I’m using Google Photos as my gallery solution.

BIRDS EYE Salmon cakes with vegetables

Happy hump day! I hope you’ve had a good day. Well as I try to explore a minimal saturated fat way of eating I happened upon these salmon cakes with vegetables from BIRDS EYE.

birds eye logo derived from its home page
Image source
birds eye salmon cakes with vegetables box image
Image source:

 

 

 

 

 

For my dinner tonight I chose to eat two salmon cakes plus a cob of corn and some avocado.

Check out my effort on Thursday night 

I don’t think anyone should think that a prepackaged fish cake is ever going to taste as good as a homemade fish cake. I cooked my salmon cakes in a small benchtop oven which is not fan forced. The cooking instructions on the packaging suggest a fan forced oven at 220 °C for 24 minutes (with a turn at 12 minutes) will give an optimum result. I cooked mine for 24 minutes (turning at 12 minutes) at 250 °C. The cakes ended up with a crisp shell and soft middle. The salmon and vegetables were well mixed and the only discernable vegetable matter was carrot. The cakes apparently contain capsicum, broccoli, carrot and onion. In addition to salmon there is white fish (whatever that is), flour, oils and thickeners. There is also potato, rice, maise, sugar, salt, xanthan gum, guar gum and emulsifiers. Gee that makes the cakes sound so attractive…NOT!

Fortunately the corn was really nice and the avocado was just ripe. I think adding some sweet chili sauce also helped. I have four cakes left. I’ll definitely eat them, I’m not into wasting money. The packet cost me $8.25. Will I buy more? I might. There’s nothing awful about the salmon cakes. I think I could make something much nicer myself but the real reason for buying something like this is cost and convenience. For anyone living alone, making salmon cakes from scratch would be potentially more expensive in produce and time. Tonight I came home from work and basically had everything cooked in my little benchtop oven and within an hour I had food in my belly.

Humpday dinner. Salmon cakes with corn and avocado.
Humpday dinner. Salmon cakes with corn and avocado.

 

BIRDS EYE Salmon Cakes nutrition information
BIRDS EYE Salmon Cakes nutrition information | Image Source

 

So would you buy these salmon cakes?

Salmon cakes with sweet corn, rice and quinoa on Thursday 23 July 2015

Rice and quinoa
Rice and quinoa
Thursday dinner. Salmon cakes with corn and rice with quinoa.
Thursday dinner. Salmon cakes with corn and rice with quinoa.

For a gallery of the Thursday dinner click on my Google Photos link and for full size versions click on each photograph.

A new Vegemite chocolate idea for Cadbury! Vegemite Caramello Koala

Hello Cadbury Australia. I love your Vegemite chocolate. Given that product combines caramel with Vegemite how about a Vegemite Caramello Koala. This is a fair dinkum Aussie match made in heaven. It could be a girl koala to pair with the current Caramello Koala. Can you imagine biting into its belly and getting that lovely salty caramel flavour of caramel and Vegemite?

The Caramello Koala in the photographs here are sold for $1 in a box of 44 charity chocolates. Can you image how well these would sell for charity chocolate? They could come in a box of all Vegemite Caramello Koalas or in a combination of normal Caramello Koalas plus Vegemite Caramello Koalas. They could be mixed with Freddo Frogs and the creations popping candy chocolates.

I can see trendy cafes selling them as part of their milkshake creations too. They can be attached to the glasses and used as a tool to dip into ice cream and cream in a milkshake. At Halloween we can suck in our American friends and make a Halloween Cadbury Vegemite Caramello Drop Bear. It would be totally awesome.

How about it Cadbury?

Wanting Cadbury to make Vegemite Caramello Koala concept
Wanting Cadbury to make Vegemite Caramello Koala concept
Wanting Cadbury to make Vegemite Caramello Koala concept
Wanting Cadbury to make Vegemite Caramello Koala concept

 

I really love Vegemite chocolate but I reckon Vegemite Caramello Koala would be the ducks guts. Check out how my Hawaiian Bro’ accepted the challenge https://l2ee2l.wordpress.com/2015/07/26/challenge-accepted-3/