Beef . . . tender, delicious, nutritious and satisfying . . . can be prepared and served in a wide variety of methods.
The aroma of cooking beef can be intoxicating, whether it is the roast in the oven, filling the house with a heady smell, or the crackling sizzle of grilling meat and the mouth-watering caress of your nasal passages.
Beef grading and beef yield-grades are the most important information about beef quality. There are eight grades of beef, from Prime on the top to Canner on the bottom, with only the three top grades being sold to consumers for home preparation. Beef yield-grades relate mostly to partially processed cattle carcasses and are used more by butchers, meat cutters and processors. Grading is based upon the intra-muscular “marbling” of fat and the age of the cattle at the time of slaughter.
Most fine restaurants serve only prime grade beef, a grading that represents only two-percent of the cattle submitted for grading. Prime beef appears heavily marbled with fat which is cooked away during grilling or roasting, leaving behind tender, juicy and delicious meat. Choice beef is well-marbled and nearly as tender as prime. Select, formerly called “good,” is the most common selection available in the supermarket or grocery store and has little marbling, but properly prepared, it is delicious.
Steaks, cut from along the ribs, are the royal family of beef cuts, with the Porterhouse being the “King of Steaks.”
The Porterhouse contains the strip and the loin portions of the meat, on either side of a “T” bone, and gives the eater the best of all worlds; the juicy, flavorful strip and the tender, delicious loin or fillet. The T-Bone Steak is from the smaller end of the ribs and has a smaller portion of the tenderloin than the Porterhouse. Further forward along the ribs are found the Rib-eye steaks, considered by many to be the best piece of meat in a cow; tender, juicy, flavorful and satisfying. The strip side of the rib steaks is often separated and sold as Kansas City or New York Strip Steaks, or just Strips.
Steaks may be prepared by a variety of means, but most commonly, the better cuts are grilled, either by heat from below or above. Open fire grilling is often mistakenly called barbequing, but the barbeque is another cooking method entirely. Restaurant grilling is usually accomplished by a gas flame from below a heavy grille. Home grilling may be done over charcoal, wood or gas flames, depending upon the type of equipment used.
People not involved in the production of beef often wonder what part of the cow they’re actually eating when they sit down for a steak dinner. The diagram below shows where each cut comes from.
