OT cooking? A cheap prime cut vs. an expensive choice cut

[micky]

OT? A cheap prime cut vs. an expensive choice cut

I've always been satisfied with the meat they sell at the store, until I got back from my long trip. I'd eaten meat at restaurants and take-outs on the trip, but not cooked any myself. The piece I got when I was home was delicious. And I've spent the last 8 months buying the same cut again and it's never been as tender.

So I thought, maybe they accidentally gave me some prime beef instead of choice like it was labeled.

So I thought, lets go buy some choice beef and see if it is worth the extra money and maybe extra effort to get.

So I'm looking online, and by golly there is, not surprisingly I gues, prime chuck pot roast. I don't remember what the next more expensive roast is, but I can find out at the store. Is a more expensive choice cut still goign to be not as tender as a cheap prime cut?

As an aside, most of the angus meat I see has no grade on it, for some reason I can only speculate... They spend time advertising angus and think that is enough to sell it, and they don't have to say what grade it is. But at Target once I saw choice angus beef. That one example wasn't very tender, but one is an insufficient sample and could have been graded wrong.

[Ed Pawlowski]

There are actually a large range of choice. You mention chuck. Even cheap chuck is very tender if pot roasted properly.

What exactly are you buying and how are you cooking it? Chuck should be seared in a Dutch oven on a fairly hot heat, then temp reduced for a long slow cook with liquid added.

Don't forget the onions and garlic.

[Cindy Hamilton]

Where did you go on your trip?

What cut was it? How did you cook it? Did you inspect the marbling when you bought it?

For my money, it's not worth buying steak if it isn't well marbled.

Some Choice beef has nearly as much marbling as Prime. When beef is graded, they don't really look at each steak. They base it on the age of the animal as well as the appearance of the primals (the big cuts from which consumer meats are derived).

Choice beef should usually be cheaper than Prime. Most grocery stores carry Choice by default. Some low-end stores carry mostly Select. Perhaps that's what you're accustomed to.

If you're making pot roast from chuck, the grade doesn't matter that much. You'll cook it to tenderness. Ground beef is similar: grinding makes it tender.

The grade is more important for steaks, where you're not going to cook it to tenderness.

Grading is voluntary. Safety inspection is not.

Angus is a breed. They're trying to fool you into thinking it's a guarantee of quality.

Some Choice beef might be nearly as tough as Select. It's not a science.

[micky]

Mostly Greece.

I forget. I ate it raw. Didn't inspect it.

I think that was the difference between the first meat I bought there and everythign since. Not the other stuff was bad -- it was good -- but it wasn't great like the first time.

Okay, so maybe it sneaked in.

meant to say prime

Darn, I meant to say prime. lets go buy some prime beef and see if it is worth the extra money and maybe extra effort to get.

No, it's all choice. I meant to say I was going to try prime

Sorry. I shouldn't have mentioned pot roast. That was the cut on the ad for prime meat at a nearby supermarket.

HOw about comparing Prime sirloin steak with Choice Porterhouse. Porterhouse is a more expensive cut, but Prime is the more expensive grade.

I know, but everyone who sells other than angus specifies the grade. Well, maybe not those cheap stores you mentioned, but the cheap stores around here I don't think sell fresh meat.

That's what I thought.

I've got enough time to eat several times and make an average.

On closer look, the computer even for the prime chuck steak pointed to a branch of Safeway, I think it was, out in the NE suburbs beyond the reservoir. Out of Stock at the 5 other stores I checked, and the computer probably knows what it's talkilng about. I don't know if that's typical or maybe becuase it's Sunday afternoon.

But anyhow, there is a slaughterhouse 25 minutes from here that I see emphasizes prime beef**. I went there once just to look at it, for the same reaons I went to the other slaughterhouse that does Moslem slaughter. Though all I saw was the salesroom and display cases. Ths time I woudl drive around back but sat view shows 8 small buildings but no animal pens. I read 10 or 20 years ago that it was a slaughterhouse.

Anyhow, I wanted to know more before I went.

In business 100 years, 4.8 stars out of 5 on 300 reriews. **They also provide various organs for biomedical purposes! And they mmention how close they are to the airport and the port for shipping. They ship this stuff by boat?

[hubops]

Doesn't matter, as long as it's free-range organic fair-trade sustainably sourced gluten free non gmo. Yummy. John T.

[Ed Pawlowski]

I was told by a USDA inspector that they actually categorize choice to four grades within the choice. He can tell the difference but they all get the same stamp.

It is a breed descended from the Scottish Aberdeen Angus cow. As a breed though, it tends to have more marbling than other breeds. To label your beef as Angus it does have to meet some specifications. I've bought it in the past and it was good.

Great marketing but this is some real fact behind it.

[micky]

I love gluten. It's what holds my chest together.

[Clare Snyder]

2 words - sous vide

[rbowman]

Adolph's was the one brand I remembered and was surprised to find it's using bromelain rather than papain. Many of the reviewers complained about it being too salty. Perhaps his raw pineapple technique is better.

Aging is a another factor but I'd guess supermarket meat is aged for 5 minutes or less. More can go wrong with dry aging and you lose weight so wet aging has replaced it for the most part. Albertson's has dry aged beef if you're feeling rich.

I haven't eaten in one in decades but I am suspicious when a cheap chain like Golden Corral serves up melt in your mouth steaks.

[rbowman]

Go big or go home -- wagyu!

[rbowman]

The last cut of beef I bought was labeled Hereford. That surprised me since I didn't think Hereford was anything special. It made a fine pot roast.

[rbowman]

Any cow that didn't die a natural death works for me. I know they're working on it but so far I've never met an inorganic cow.

A feed lot is enough to turn your stomach but that's the joy of industrial farming. As Earl Butz pointed out people get real touchy when they're hungry so cheap food is necessary to keep them from barbecuing politicians.

[Cindy Hamilton]

You'd have to look at individual steaks to make a guess. Sirloin comes from an inherently tougher part of the animal, because it does more work. Apples and oranges.

Even marbling isn't a 100% gauge of tenderness. Chuck can be well marbled, but it always will be tough because it comes from the shoulder, which moves a lot.

Or it could have been part of the animal that's just tough. Grading isn't science. Even from a primal that's graded Choice, one end might be more well marbled (or do less work when then animal is alive) than the other, so steaks cut from one end will be more tender.

I don't eat beef very often. To maximize my ROI, I buy ribeye if I want a steak and chuck if I want a pot roast. Always USDA Choice. I pick through the steaks to find the one with the best marbling. I pick through the chuck roasts to find the one with the best meat-to-fat ratio.

[Cindy Hamilton]

You can't sous vide shank into tenderloin.

[Su Nombre]

Wait a minute! Back the bus up! Does Klaus Schwab know you're eating beef? I thought all Trudeau-lovin' Canadian socialists ate bugs.

Anyway, here's a very entertaining sous vide chef.

everybody!

[micky]

Thanks. This is all very good to know. After most of a lifetime of eating, I maybe could have gleaned all this, but it's splattered all around my brain.

I never find much difference from one package to another. I figure often they come from the same cow, or cows raised alike.

I used to use tenderizer and charcoal grill chuck. I've given up on chuck and just eat more expensive cuts. I think that's what you mean by ROT (T?)

At any rate, I'm going to go to the butcher I mentioned. I know it has its own slaughterhouse but it must be somewhere else. I'll get two big steaks of different kinds. If I like it enough, they will even deliver for orders $50 or more.

[hubops]

I almost forgot - regeneratively raised . . .

John T.

[Cindy Hamilton]

ROI: Return On Investment

Tenderizer isn't worth it for me. It just turns the outer layer to mush and doesn't do jack for the inside.

Chuck is for pot roast, cut it up for stew, or grind it up for burgers.

[rbowman]

That was a new one on me. After shoveling through a barn's worth of bull.. buzzwords I gather it means farming like an intelligent farmer did up until the '60s.

Poor farmers used up the land and moved on. Wendell Berry has written quite a bit about that. I wish ?I could move to Port William but fiction is fiction after all.

[rbowman]

My mother was big on ground round -- as in watching the butcher through round steak into the grinder. It could be a little dry.