I love grocery shopping. I wear my mp3 player and take my time walking up and down the aisles of fresh fruit and veg, meat and cheeses… I don’t really enjoy the pantry section much. I love the meat section. I’m not a vegetarian. It’s totally cool if you are, but I am not, and I love looking at all the beautiful cuts of meat in the grocery store and imagining all the wonderful things I could cook with them!
Just this week, I was chatting with a friend about how a dinner of hers was kind of wrecked by the piece of meat being too fatty. I realized at that point that I really had nothing to say. There are reccomended ways to cook each cut of meat, but I don’t know what they are! I just don’t know enough to be able to REALLY plan a meal while standing there! I figure that I’m not the only one who wants to make “a nice roast” but isn’t sure if that’s best achieved with Top Round or Bottom Round. So, I decided to go ahead and share some of my homework with you.
Chuck is the shoulder of the cow, so it’s a muscle that is constantly used. That means that this piece of meat has a lot of connective tissue which melts during cooking and makes the meat extra tasty. Cuts from this area do well in slow cooking dishes. They also are great for stewing, braising or pot-roasting.
Rib is a tender cut that is full of flavor, especially when the bone is left in. Most recipes call for roasting, sautéing, pan-friend, broiled or grilled. Rib Roast or “Standing Rib Roast” are great for slicing. It can feed a lot of people or you can get your butcher to cut a small bone roast for you. Rib Steak is also cut from the same section. They can be purchased bone in or as boneless rib-eye.
The Short Loin is an area that contains very tender cuts that can be prepared quickly. Cuts from the Short Loin should be used for sautéing, pan frying, broiling, pan broiling or grilling. Porterhouse Steak is from the rear end of the Short Loin and consists of both tenderloin and sirloin tip. Often served separately as filet mignon. T-Bone Steak is cut from the middle section of the Short Loin and has a smaller piece of the tenderloin. Tenderloin is generally considered to be the most tender cut of beef and is often served with a variety of sauces. It can be cut as the whole strip or as individual steaks for filet mignon.
The Sirloin cut is best used for sautéing, pan-frying, broiling or grilling because it is so tender. Sirloin Steaks are available in bone-in and boneless steaks. Sirloin Tip Roast is excellent when either dry roasted or marinated.
Flank is lean and very flavorful meat. It’s usually used for kabobs and flank steaks. Flank Steak has great flavor. You should slice it against the grain for best texture. It is the cut used to make “London Broil”.
The Round is lean meat that is best suited to long, moist cooking methods like braising or pot-roasting. Top Round is the most tender part of the round. It is prepared as pot-roast or cut into thick steaks for braised dishes. Rump Roast is an extremely popular cut for pot-roasting. It is also the most popular cut for using in a slow cooker.
My favorite cut of beef is the Brisket/Shank. It’s used for so many of my favorite dishes, including corned beef. Shank is great for stewing, braising and pot-roasting as is Brisket. Brisket is also one of the most popular cuts used in Texas BBQ. Forshank is best for stew meat. Brisket First Cut is the more lean portion of the brisket. It’s full of flavor and not the fat. Brisket Front Cut is the type of cut that is “fork tender”. It’s more fatty, but the fat melts away to make the meat amazingly tender.
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