Monday, February 11, 2008

Know Your Beef

The above image depicts the primal cuts of beef commonly referenced in the United States. British and other European butchers refine these even further.

Our steers range from 500 to 700 pounds in hanging weight and yield 300 to 400+ pounds of packaged meat.

We welcome any questions you might have!

Primal Cuts of Beef

Chuck

The primal chuck is the animal's shoulder and accounts for approximately 28% of the carcass weight. This section contains a portion of the backbone, five rib bones and portions of the blade and arm bones.

Because an animal constantly uses these shoulder muscles, chuck contains a high percentage of connective tissue, resulting in relatively tough but very flavorful meat.

Your choices from this primal include:

• Chuck roast
• Arm roast
• Cubed or tenderized steaks
• Stew or stir-fry meat
• Ground chuck

Our personal votes stand with the roasts, pre-sliced stew meat, and ground beef. Chuck and other working-muscle cuts take well to moist-heat cooking such as stewing and braising.

Read chuck recipes from Epicurious here, or read about braising and other cooking methods here.

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Brisket and Shank

The brisket (steer's breast) and foreshank (front leg) form a single primal that accounts for approximately 8% of carcass weight.

Your choices from this primal include:

• Brisket (boned out or ground)
  • Well suited for moist-heat methods such as simmering or braising and may be pickled or corned to produce corned beef brisket, or cured and peppered to make pastrami.
• Foreshank (whole or ground)
  • Very flavorful and high in collagen, which converts to gelatin when cooked using moist heat and makes excellent soup stock. Ground shank meat may also help clarify and flavor consommés.

Read brisket recipes from Epicurious here, or read about simmering and other cooking methods here.

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Rib

The primal beef rib accounts for approximately 10% of carcass weight and is best known for yielding roast prime rib. (Note: Prime rib is not named after the quality grade "USDA Prime." Rather, its name reflects the fact that it constitutes the majority of this primal cut.)

The eye meat of the rib (the center muscle) is not well-exercised and is therefore quite tender. It also contains large amounts of marbling compared to the rest of the carcass and produces rich, full-flavored roasts and steaks.

Your choices from this primal include:

• Ribeye roast (prime rib; bone-in or boneless)
  • Although roasting the eye muscle on the rib bones produces a moister roast, the eye meat can be removed to produce a boneless "ribeye" roast.
• Ribeye steaks (bone-in or boneless)
  • Sliced eye muscle
• Ribs
  • Meaty, flavorful bones separated from the rib eye meat and often served as barbecued beef ribs. The ends of the rib bones that are trimmed off in the production of rib roast are known as beef short ribs. These too are meaty and often served braised. Ribs may also be ground.

Read beef rib and rib roast recipes from Epicurious here, or read about roasting and other cooking methods here.

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Short Plate

The short plate, located directly beneath the primal rib, contains rib bones and cartilage and accounts for approximately 9% of the overall weight of the carcass.

Your choices from this primal include:

• Short ribs
  • Meaty yet high in connective tissue; best braised
• Skirt steak
  • Skirt steak is often marinated and grilled for slicing, as for fajitas.
• Ground
  • Other less meaty portions of the short plate are typically trimmed and ground.

Read skirt steak recipes from Epicurious here, or read about braising and other cooking methods here.

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Short loin

The short loin is the front portion of the beef loin, located just behind the rib. It accounts for approximately 8% of carcass weight and yields many of the most tender and expensive cuts of beef.

The short loin also provides a great example of the "give and take" inherent in cut selection. Everyone wants lots of steaks, right? Well, they're interrelated:

The tenderloin is the choicest cut and is sometimes removed whole or cut á la carte into filet mignon.

However, the T-bone steak includes both a New York Strip (on one side of the "T") and a portion of tenderloin (on the other side), so if the tenderloin is removed completely, you can't produce T-bone steaks.

Likewise, if you choose to process as many T-bones as possible, you won't have as much meat left for plain 'ol New York Strips. Get it? Embracing this interrelation is an important step in knowing and using the whole animal.

So, your choices from this primal include:

• Tenderloin
  • Lies beneath the loin eye muscle, under the backbone; is the choicest cut of all
• T-bone steaks
  • Produced when the short loin is cross-sectioned with the bone in (contains a NY Strip on one side of the "T" and a small portion of tenderloin on the other)
• New York Strip steaks
  • From the tender loin eye muscle, a continuation of the rib eye muscle, running along the top of the T-shaped bones that form the backbone

Read tenderloin recipes from Epicurious here.

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Sirloin

The sirloin, located between the short loin and the round, accounts for approximately 7% of carcass weight and contains part of the backbone as well as part of the hipbone.

This primal produces flavorful and tender bone-in or boneless roasts and steaks. With the exception of the tenderloin portion, however, these subprimal and fabricated cuts are not as tender as those from the short loin. See further information on the tenderloin in the Short Loin description.

Your choices from this primal include:

• Top Sirloin Steaks
  • Traditional, meaty steaks
• Sirloin Tip Steaks
  • Flavorful but tougher steaks; best marinated
• Sirloin Roasts
  • Same sirloin tip meat left as a roast (this is our preference)

Sirloin cuts like dry-heat methods such as broiling, grilling, or roasting.

Read sirloin steak recipes from Epicurious here, or read about broiling and other cooking methods here.

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Flank

Located directly beneath the loin, behind the short plate, the flank accounts for approximately 6% of carcass weight. Although quite flavorful and boneless, the flank tends to be tough, due to its proportion of fat and connective tissue.

Flank meat is usually trimmed and ground, with the exception of the flank steak or London broil.

Your choices from this primal include:

• Flank steaks
  • Flavorful but tough; best marinated or braised
• Ground

Read London broil recipes from Epicurious here.

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Round

The primal round is very large, accounting for approximately 24% of carcass weight. Meat from the round—the hind leg of the animal—is flavorful and fairly tender. As the name implies, anything not "cut" in this primal yields ground round.

Your choices include:

• Top round (tenderized steaks or roasts)
  • Large muscles with little intermuscular fat
• Bottom round (tenderized steaks or roasts)
• Dried Beef
  • Thin-sliced and salty; fully cooked and DELICIOUS
• Hindshank (same uses as foreshank)
  • Very flavorful and high in collagen, which converts to gelatin when cooked using moist heat and makes excellent soup stock. Ground shank meat may also help clarify and flavor consommés.

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Organ Meats

This group of product, known as offal, includes the heart, kidney, tongue, tripe (stomach lining), and oxtail. Offal require moist-heat cooking and are often used in soup, stew or braised dishes.

NOTE: IF YOU DON'T SEE A CUT YOU WANT, PLEASE E-MAIL US AND WE'LL LOOK INTO AVAILABILITY.

Thanks to Wikipedia, Victoria Meat Packing, LeDebuhr Meat Processing, and Quillen's of Waukon, Iowa, for the background information synthesized on this page.