A Quick Way to Decipher Animal Cuts
You’re at the butcher’s house and you see a cute piece of meat on sale at a low price, but as soon as you buy it, you know you have no idea if it’s tough or tender and what to do with it. Should you be throwing meat on a hot grill, or will you need to cook it slowly and slowly?
ChefSteps offers a simple visual tool to help answer this question. The next time you find yourself wondering about a piece of meat, stop and think about which part of the animal the cut was made from (if you don’t know, your butcher will tell you) and figure out its approximate location in the video above. … More from ChefSteps on what you should visualize:
A great way to remember which muscles are tough and which are tender is to remember that starting at the center of the cow’s back and moving down and out along the cow’s body, the muscles move from the most tender to the hardest.
Once you determine the location of the cut, you ask yourself what this piece of animal wasted its time on. Has this body part spent a lot of time doing physical activity or actively supporting the animal and its weight? If so, it will be full of connective tissue and collagen and will taste viscous and tough unless stewed or fried for an extended period of time.
For example, muscles that work a lot – like the legs, shoulders, cheeks (mammals chew a lot!), Ribs and brisket – contain a lot of collagen and are quite tough, so they need to be cooked slowly and slowly. … But after enough time and constant heating, the collagen will turn into gelatin, which will make these pieces of meat incredibly tender and full of body. On the other hand, cow’s back muscles (such as coveted steaks such as tenderloin, T-bone, New York striped, filet mignon) don’t work at all, so they are naturally tender as a result. and can be quickly sautéed over high heat until perfectly medium.
Deciphering Complex and Delicate Abbreviations | ChefSteps
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