.Cuts and Grades of Beef
Source of Recipe
Cooking for Graduate Students & Other Beginning Kitchen Dwellers (James W. Cooper)
Recipe Link: http://wywahoos.org/wahoos/cookbook/cover.htm Cuts and Grades of Beef
Beef comes in differing cuts, suitable for serving rare or for long slow cooking. In general, sirloin, and filets can be served rare, top round and flank may be served rare, and chuck, bottom round, and stew meat must be cooked slowly until tender, to soften the sinews of the meat. Beware of high priced filet mignon or chateaubriand-style meets with little fat on them: you will have a hard time cooking them without drying them out and they are very expensive.
Beef in the U.S. is also graded by the Department of Agriculture as Prime, Choice, Good and Commercial, according to tenderness and fat marbling. Nearly all Prime beef goes to restaurants, although some may be available in specialty shops for a song (actually, more like an opera). Most meat sold in markets is Choice graded. Look for good fat marbling in beef that you want to cook rare.
Meat Bloom
Package beef in the supermarket exhibits a bright red color because of oxygen which causes the myoglobin in the meat to redden. Below the surface, and even on the bottom size of the meat, the color will be much less red. However, if you cut the meat and allow it to set out in the air, those parts will redden as well in the short term. Eventually, a second reaction sets in causing the meat to brown, and soon after that the meat's flavor begins to deteriorate.
In order to encourage this bloom, butchers put their meat out in packages covered with semiporous wrapping material. Thus, this wrapping is not really suitable for long term freezing, since the meat will dry out in the freezer because of this porosity.
Hamburger Grading
Hamburger grading is rather confusing since the popular names don't really describe the cut of the meat at all, but only the percent fat.
Ground sirloin 10% fat
Ground round 15% fat
Ground chuck 20-% fat
Ground beef 25% fat or moreIn general, select the ground chuck grade, since the leaner grades have too little fat to cook without burning.
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