Prime: The Beef Cookbook by Richard H. Turner

[Anna N]

 I really wanted to like this book which I bought when it was mentioned in the Kindle bargain books topic but I simply cannot get past this:

 

“500g (1lb 2oz) bone-in steaks such as T-bone or prime rib, cut 3–4mm (about ⅛ inch) thick”

 

This is from one of the first recipes in the book called Butter-fried Steak with Golden Garlic. 

 

This steak is cooked for 6 to 8 minutes total over high heat or until medium-rare and then allowed to rest for 10 minutes before being sliced for service. 

 

This requires a capitulation on my part even greater than Coleridge’s “willing suspension of disbelief”. 

 

Everything else in the book may be brilliant but how does one overcome this?

 

 

 

 

[quiet1]

1/8" thick total?

[Anna N]

 And here is the link to the full recipe. Does nobody read these? 

 

Click.

[IndyRob]

It looks like there's been some sort of editorial fiasco with the thickness measurements.  The recipe specifies 2 X 500g steaks.  A typical grocery store T-bone would be a match at slightly over 1 lb and those steaks, as well as the steaks in the pic, are clearly not 1/8".  From there, the rest of the recipe seems reasonable (if unremarkable).

[Toliver]

1 hour ago, Anna N said:

 And here is the link to the full recipe. Does nobody read these? 

 

Click.

If the picture is supposed to represent the recipe you can clearly see it's not 1/8" thick. Perhaps they meant 1/2" thick.

I wonder if the publisher has an errata/erratum page for this cookbook?

[Kerry Beal]

30 to 40 mm instead of 3 to 4 would make them 1 1/8 to 1 1/2 inches thick.  

[Thanks for the Crepes]

Yeah, that's what I thought, as a US person who doesn't really intuitively get the metric system. I think it's just a mistake and they meant cm instead of mm, and the translation into Imperial went off from there. I have made that mistake myself, so it can happen.

 

Still it does not bode well for the reliability of this cookbook to be a source of guidance.

[Anna N]

I had two reasons for posting about this recipe:

 

a) The obvious measurement error which no one seems to have caught in the many reviews I have read. 

 

b)  That such errors, however caused, leave me with little further interest in the book no matter its other merits. 

 

 I doubt it will cause anyone actual grief since finding a bone-in steak cut 1/8 of an inch thick would pose almost as big a challenge as actually trying to cook it. 

 

 

 

[MelissaH]

This definitely strikes me as a unit conversion issue. This is the sort of thing a cookbook editor is typically supposed to catch!

[Anna N]

21 minutes ago, MelissaH said:

This definitely strikes me as a unit conversion issue. This is the sort of thing a cookbook editor is typically supposed to catch!

 I don’t think it’s unit conversion here.  1/8 of an inch does translate to 3 to 4 mm so something else is happening here I believe.   It definitely should have been caught in the editorial process.