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

[Cindy Hamilton]

Anything from the back half of the cow tastes a little liver-ish to me. Even flank: I always give it a powerful wet rub to disguise the taste a little bit.

[T]

Hi Micky,

One of my favorite tings to do is to wait for teh Natural Tri Tip roasts to come on sale, then I have the butcher cut them into what is called "Bottom Sirloin" steaks. They are really tender.

-T

[invalid unparseable]

T wrote on 1/31/2023 6:05 AM:

Have you tried 'velveting' techniques?

Tenderise beef for stir fries (Velveting Beef)

[T]

Hmmmmm... Baking soda for 1/2 hour. I have not tried it. How about you? How did it come out.

I wonder how something 6 inches thick (rump roast) would deal with 3.4 tablespoon of baking soda?

I usually put my old shoe cuts down my pressure cookers until they "fall apart". I comes out really, really dry, which I do not care for.

Then I use them in Spanish rice cauliflower, Chili, Jicama shell tacos, etc.. (Keto)

[T]

You eat beef? If you lose all your wokie friends, there is always the rest of us.

Be careful, being seen eating beef by a wokie or other plant based evangelist, will cause them to suffer psychological inflammation. Wokies get rather mean when you cross them.

[invalid unparseable]

It works. It is always done on beef served in Chinese restaurants.

You should rinse well afterwards to avoid taking in too much sodium in your diet (table salt is also sodium). The meat will look blood red after treatment with baking soda, which is appealing to customers in the meat department. I think you should add something sour when you cook the meat, like lemon juice or vinegar to balance the PH.

This is directly from Arm & Hammer:

Baking Soda as a Meat Tenderizer

Here is another one about velveting with baking soda and cornstarch:

Velveting Beef Technique: How to Velvet Beef at Home

Beef will lose moisture when over cooked. Best cut of beef will turn into shoe leather unless you slow cook or pressure cook for a long time. Try the cornstarch and egg white method to see if it can help your rump roast retain moisture in the pressure cooker.

I believe 'velveting' will destroy or soften the ligaments and cell walls inside beef, so that the beef will not tighten up so much when heated. Tightening up will squeeze out the intracellular and intercellular moister and make the beef tough to chew.

The Secret To Oddly Tender Chinese Meat

[Cindy Hamilton]

For Micky, here's an overview of the grading process:

And a roundup of what the primals are and what they're good for:

[rbowman]

Not a fan of Ochsenschwanzsuppe? That's as back half as you can get. Odd description, but I like liver anyway.

[micky]

Thanks. Good to read this now, going to butcher today. Have to get an ultrasound. Called yesterday. Said first appointment is Feb 15!!!!. What about another location? Tomorrow. Westminster, right up the road from the slaughterhouse, meat market that does game and the annual Moslem holiday. I don't konw if they have prime but I'll be driving right by anyhow.

Also went** for Covid and Flu yesteday, out of flu vaccine, I waited too long, they won't get more, "good luck finding it". But in this small town outside of baltimore, both pharmacies I called had it. (Walgreens wanted me to go online. Rite-aid said just walk in. They say that on their website too.)

**Didn't go earlier because I had planned to get it 2 weeks before going to Lima, but that trip is cancelled or postponed. Civil strife. My spend-thrift sil bought an apartment there, which they rarely use, so no hotel charges.

I went to a cattle auction once, near DisneyWorld. One cow at a time. It was okay.

[Jim Joyce]

Not to disrupt the flow here, but a few weeks ago I saw a funny video where a guy didn't know that the meat that we eat is mostly muscle. Haha, I thought, so during the weekend 4 of us were together, drinking wine and playing dominoes. I mentioned that video and the guy across the table asked his wife if it was true? The look she gave him was priceless. He didn't say any more, but I'm thinking they discussed it later.

[Cindy Hamilton]

No problem.

Good grief! I assume this wasn't some youngster...

I was already thinking this morning about the last deer my husband butchered, since a piece of it is in the fridge defrosting. People really are divorced from where their food comes from, aren't they?

[Ed Pawlowski]

I think hunters are despicable for killing animals for meat. Save the animals and buy the meat in the supermarket.

[Dan Espen]

Or buy hamburger. It's pretty obvious no animal contains hamburger.

[rbowman]

Why don't you take your calf for a nice walk?

[rbowman]

Obviously you've never seen a deer that met a pod of 18-wheelers. One truck hits it and then it looks like that game Afghans play with a dead goat.

[micky]

Right. How would they even stand up if they were made of hamburger.

I eat a lot of meat raw. Steak. Ground beef raw, what do they call that in French, is not very good.

Once in a while when I think about it, I feel like an animal. The major thing that saves me is that the meat has been refrigerated. Wild animals don't get to eat refrigerated meat. And I use a knife and fork. but if it's warm, were I not to bother with the flatware, I think I'd really feel like an animal.

[micky]

It started when, more than once, I overcooked some meat. I like it rare or medium but I let it get too well done. So I started being more careful and sometimes, often, ended up taking it out too early. And then even earlier, and I liked it more and more, and sometimes I was so hungry I'm put most in the broiler and save a little part to eat right now. And then more and more stayed out of the broiler.

So far, no parasites and I haven't gotten sick yet.

[Cindy Hamilton]

How can you be certain?

[invalid unparseable]

I am reminded of my hunting buddy with a farm who bought a calf to raise for the beef and his son named the calf, Bosco.

We were goose hunting one day and at lunch time my friend asked if I would like a roast beef sandwich. I turned him down as I had my own lunch. He said, "Bosco will be disappointed."

[invalid unparseable]

The animals we hunt have ranged free and may live for many years in the wild. Animals raised for food are penned up and live short lives.

I hunted state parks and national refuges. The wardens let us in under controlled conditions to help thin the herd to keep it healthy. Over population can lead to mass starvation in the winter. The animals do not save for a rainy day and all can die. When deer eat your evergreen shrubbery they are starving. They will die with a full stomach because the evergreens contain no nutritional value for them.