The Wallace’s beef tongue burger ranks on the edge of lamb and organ meat on our Game-O-Meter (above). (
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‘Beef forward.”
It sounds like the greatest unused campaign slogan of all time (it’s not too late to print up a bunch of bumper stickers, Mitt), but it’s actually how chef-owner Jon Wallace of new Clinton Hill restaurant the Wallace describes his meat dishes.
Wallace’s burger is made of ground short rib and beef tongue. The experimentation results in a patty that’s more flavorful, earthy and yes, beef forward, tasting.
“A burger can be more,” he says. “If you use the right grind of meat, then you can really bring out the beef flavor of beef.”
Wallace isn’t alone in trying to give diners more beef flavor in their burgers and steaks. If you’ve noticed that a lot of the cow on restaurant tables of late tastes — what’s the word? — stronger or gamier, you’re not imagining things.
“Those flavors are much more widespread,” says Cory Lane, operations director of Resto and the Cannibal, two meat-loving restaurants. “People are seeking them out.”
Wallace credits Giada, Ina and friends with helping Americans to overcome their fear of gamier flavors. “Thanks in no small part to the proliferation of the Food Network,” he says, “people are getting more adventurous and want to taste things that have more punch to them.”
But not every diner is up for a burger that packs a wallop. “I took my first bite and I was like ‘urgh,’ ” says Michelle, who recently tried the hamburger at new Williamsburg hot spot Reynard and declined to give her last name for professional reasons. “It tasted too rich. Too strong. I like an old-fashioned, more homey burger.”
A key reason for the stronger flavors is that more restaurants are serving grass-fed beef as part of a larger emphasis on responsibly sourced ingredients. Cattle raised on grass tend to be leaner and have a gamier taste than their corn-eating cousins.
Another reason for the stronger flavors is the trend towards using more off-cuts — not just old stars like sirloin, filet and rib-eye — especially as more restaurants do their own butchering and work to put as much of the cow to use as possible.
“There are cuts in the animals that will be gamier and grassier, such as hanger steak and skirt steak and flank steak,” says Mark Pastore, president of Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors. “There’s tremendous demand for those meats now.”
The house cut at Williamsburg’s St. Anselm is a butcher’s steak, a k a the hanger steak, a cut that got its name because it hangs by the cow’s innards, taking on more of an organ-y flavor.
Dry aging is also becoming more popular; in addition to making the meat more tender, it concentrates the beefy flavor.
“I call it controlled rot,” says John Comerford, a Penn State associate professor of animal science. “The tenderness thing happens in the first 15 days [of aging]. After that, there can be some significant flavor changes. It becomes mustier, more gamey.”
For those really wanting to ratchet up their communion with a cow (and all its gamey possibilities), there’s always organ meat. For the most adventurous meat eaters, chef Preston Clarke serves a “heart Milanese” — a breaded beef heart — at Resto and a heart tartare at the Cannibal. “The public is looking for adventure,” he says, noting that fans of bolder meat flavors outnumber the haters. “They’re not afraid. They’re looking for something out of the norm and they’re a little more educated, especially when it comes to beef.”
But there are still at least a few people who prefer dinner to be a tamer affair. “We took one bite each and looked at each other with faces of disgust,” one Chowhound critic recently wrote after trying grass-fed burgers for the first time. “We hated the taste of the meat. I seriously put my burger down and said, ‘Let’s order pizza.’ ”
reed.tucker@nypost.com