Continue reading »]]> When it comes to selecting a steak, the grocery store can be a confusing place. There are so many different names. My goal is to teach you what these steaks are and how to prepare them. Today I will look at the ranch steak, also known as the more complicated boneless chuck shoulder center cut steak (grocery stores saved a lot of money in ink by just calling it a ranch steak!)

Where Does a Ranch Steak Come From (What Part of the Cow)?
Whenever selecting a steak it’s important to know where on the cow that steak was cut from. This will tell you how tough or how tender the steak is. The ranch steak comes from the chuck primal. This is the section of the cow closet to the head. Steaks cut from this section can be tough if overcooked. But there is good flavor to be had and enough fat to keep the meat from drying out. Excess fast is normally removed by the butcher. Ranch steaks are typically no bigger than 10 ounces and are about 1 inch thick.

How to Prepare a Ranch Steak
Braising is a good option, but I choose to grill mine so that is what I will talk about here. You can marinade this steak, but it isn’t required. It has enough flavor on it’s own to be good with just kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. If you like your steak well done, then this isn’t a good choice for you. If this steak is cooked past medium it becomes quite tough.

To grill, bring the steak to room temperature, by leaving it out for 30 minutes (don’t worry it won’t spoil on you in that time). This will allow the steak to cook faster and more evenly. I sprinkle the steak with kosher salt when I take it out. This will draw moisture and protein out of the steak that will help in the searing process. I grilled my steak on a Lodge Cast Iron 12-Inch Square Grill Pan. This is the next best option to outdoor grilling. When it comes to grilling time, there are a lot of things to factor in. So I think that is best uses through trial and error as well as learning what a perfectly cooked steak feels like. My particularly experience on my grill pan, took about 3-4 minutes per side to cook. I was going for a medium steak. When a steak is medium, it should be slightly firm but with some give when press down on it. A steak that doesn’t give much when you press on it, is most likely beyond medium.

Is a Ranch Steak Worth Your Money
At $4.99/lb a ranch steak is a good bargain. It has a good flavor and is good for those on a budget. While I don’t think it tastes as good as a sirloin or ribeye, it’s a nice alternative that is worth checking out. I do have to point out one downside is that there is a small, silver colored streak in the steak that will not melt or soften up. So you will just have to eat the meat around it and cut that section out. At least in mine, it was only a small fraction of the steak.

Continue reading »]]> Question: What is Angus beef?

Answer: You may seen a restaurant advertising they have burgers or steaks made from Angus or Black Angus beef. So what does this exactly mean? Angus is a breed of cattle. Just like there are breeds of dogs, there are breeds of cows. Some people feel that the meat of these cows produce better beef products. Black Angus is a black Angus cow. There are also Red Angus cows, but the black is seen as the better cow for beef.

What is Certified Angus Beef (CAB)?
Certified Angus Beef is beef that has gone through a certification process. It has to meet certain qualifications that are determined by a certification board. The qualifications have to do with their marbling and maturity of the meat, the size of the meat, and quality control. Beef that meets all the requirements is then labeled “Certified Angus Beef” or CAB. Is this truly better beef? That is up to the taste buds of the consumer. I can tell you that this certification process is not free. So if something isn’t labeled CAB, it doesn’t mean that the beef can’t come from an Angus cow it just wasn’t certified. Some farms choose to skip this to save money,

Continue reading »]]> There are a lot of words to describe the meat you find in your local grocery store. You may see words like choice, select, all-natural, grass-fed, angus, etc. In this post we are going to look at what the grades: prime, choice, select, and certified premium mean. Knowing what these grades mean will help you on your next grocery trip.

First off, you have to know that grading is not required. The USDA requires inspection of the entire meat process but they do not require the farm to grade their meat. Niman Ranch known for some of the best meat in the country does not grade their meat, but meat that is graded will have value based upon that grade.

Factors that go int grading beef are: the color, it’s weight, meat-to-bone ratio, fat-to-body ratio, age of the cow, and other physical characteristics. Here is the explanation of each grade with a little analogy.

Prime
This is the top of the line stuff. This beef comes from a young steer. The meat is nicely formed with a great deal of marbling in it and there isn’t a great deal of fat around the outer portion of the meat. The color of the beef is a nice light red with no dark spots. There is also a high meat to bone ratio. Prime beef is hard to find in the grocery store, as most of it goes to restaurants. The name “Prime rib” is usually applied to any rib cut roast, but unless it is made from prime beef it is really not prime rib.

Analogy: This beef is like the tuxedo that you rent for a wedding you are in.

Choice
This is still good meat but has one or more flaws in it, keeping it from being prime beef. Those flaws include less marbling, but still some. It has more fat around the outside. It still has a good meat to bone ratio. Even though is less marbled it is leaner. This is the best beef for your buck. It’s cheaper than prime, but still of good quality. Choice beef is easy to find in the grocery store. Alton Brown, from the show Good Eats, says he prefers choice beef for the price and he thinks it has a more beefy taste.

Analogy: This beef is like the suit you wear to a wedding when you are not in the wedding party. You still look nice, but you don’t outshine the groom.

Select
This meat has a poor meat to bone ratio. It does not have much in the way of marbling, so while it might be leaner, it can be too lean. Also you may find a lot of connective tissue. Select beef is typically only used for stew meat where connective tissue can be broken down through a slow cooking process. Most butchers only carry select beef for this purpose.

Analogy: This beef is like the outfit you picked out at the last minute because you didn’t have anything better to wear. With the right knowledge you can still make it work, but if done poorly people will turn up their nose at you.

Certified Premium
This is also choice beef but it is the best of the choice beef. It’s a grading program where choice beef is examined and the cuts considered the best are given the certified premium label. Different organizations grade the beef to be certified premium, based on their requirements. One example of this is beef that is labeled “Chairman’s Reserve® Certified Premium Beef”. In this case the organization, Chairman’s Reserve has determine that this beef meets their guidelines for certified premium beef.

Continue reading »]]> What is a Charcoal Steak?
Whenever you visit your local mega mart’s beef case you are confronted with a wide array of choices. Steaks have so many different names. It can be hard to keep them apart. My mission is to help sort out some of these names, one steak at a time. Up today is the charcoal steak. What is a charcoal steak? Why is it called such? A lot of steak names can be based on the region in which they are sold. The best I can do is tell you what a charcoal steak sold in Saline, Michigan is. My research online did not provide any concrete answers, so I have to turn to my past history with beef. The cut is likely from the chuck primal. The chuck is the area of the cow located closed to it’s head. This area produces some of the best finger licking good cuts, like chuck eye which is great for pot roast. This area is also home to the flat iron steak, which is growing in popularity. The flat iron steak lead me to my conclusion as the charcoal steak I purchased looked much like the flat iron. In fact, I could have been easily fooled into thinking what I was getting is a flat iron steak. However upon eating it I can tell you that this steak is tougher than a flat iron. I cooked it close to the medium rare – medium threshold and I had to do a little more chewing than I liked. The flavor was still good though. So learning from this experience here is how I would cook it next time.

How to Cook a Charcoal Steak
I still think you can grill this steak, but I would use a marinade first. The marinade must contain an acid. Why is this important? Well acids cause our tongue to produce saliva. Saliva contains enzymes. Enzymes will help to tenderize the meat as we eat it, thus making the meat easier to chew. The most commons acidic ingredients to use in marinade are citrus (lemon or lime juice), wine, or vinegar. But you don’t need a lot. In fact it should only take up a small part of your marinade, say 1 part acidic solution and 3-4 parts other liquids (soy sauce and olive oil are good choices). The marinade can also contain things like peppercorns, red pepper flakes, cumin, fresh garlic, shallots, etc.

How long to soak the meat in the marinade? Charcoal steak isn’t that thick so you won’t need long. Hour is the minimum and I won’t go beyond two hours. When it comes time to cook, you can cook it on your grill or sear it in a nice hot cast iron pan (this is what I did). I cooked my steak for 3 1/2 minutes on one side and 3 minutes on the other and it was perfectly done for me. But that might be different in your setting. Using a thermometer and learning to know how the meat “feels” when cooked to your desired temperature is how to learn to cook your perfect steak. I would not recommend cooking this cut of beef past medium, it will be too tough.

Continue reading »]]> Whenever one is feeling sick, usually some intense TV viewing is a part of the experience. So myself being sick today, thought it make for a good time to review a Good Eats episode I had on my DVR involving one of my favorite subject: steak. Alton has done shows on several different cuts of beef. This show he is focusing on one of the more expensive cuts – the Porterhouse. There is a lot to learn from this episode and I will share some of what I learned below:

The Porterhouse comes from the short loin of area of the cow and contains a piece of strip steak and tenderloin. But it all depends on how those muscles are cut up. Alton explained that the government has determined what is considered a porterhouse and what isn’t. If the amount of tenderloin is less than 1/2 inch across than it is a bone-in strip steak. If you have at least 1/2 inch, then you have a T-bone. If you have 1 1/4 inches, now you got your porterhouse. The reason for the difference in size is that the tenderloin isn’t the same size, it tapers at one end. So at one end you have the bone-in strip and at the other larger end you have the porterhouse. So you would think you would want the steak at the largest end, right? Well the problem with that is that there is a vein of connective tissue in the strip steak portion at that end. This would make that part of the steak hard to chew. So you are best off with finding something in the middle. So when shopping for a porterhouse, make sure you don’t see a white line shaped like a “L”. Or you could pick one that has a tenderloin piece closest to 1 1/4 inches.

Alton also spoke of the dry age process. Meat is made up of a good deal of water and if we can get rid of some of that water, the meat flavor will be stronger. He was able to dry age this steak in the fridge by using a disposable pie tin, some wood skewers, and a paper towel. We changed the paper towel after 24 hours, then let the steak sit in his fridge for 3 more days. This is a technique I would like to try out. In typical Alton style he cooked the steak using a cinder block, chimney starter, charcoal, metal mixing bowl and a grill grate. Of course you can grill, pan-sear, or broil your porterhouse any you want.

Lastly, Alton explains the reason for the name – porterhouse. The steak was first thought to be served at a place that served porter, a dark strong beef. Those places were called porterhouse, hence where the name came from.

Overall, this is one of the best episodes in a while. I learned how to shop for a good porterhouse. As well as how to dry age a steak. I would recommend looking this one up on YouTube or checking Food Network’s website to see when it will air again.

Continue reading »]]> It seems like there are a thousand names for steaks, and it can be difficult sometimes to pinpoint what you got. It took me a little bit of searching to discover what a petite steak was. The petite steak as it names suggests is a small steak that is cut from the chuck primal (or the shoulder of the cow). The chuck is known for producing some of the most finger licking food you could imagine, but not normally a tender steak. But the petite steak is an exception. The only problem is that there is a laying of connective tissue that won’t go away even if you burn the thing into ashes. But around that connective tissue is come pretty flavorful meat, you just have to cut around it. Because of this “defect” you should be able to find the steak at a low price, thus it’s a great value. The Nibble.com ranked it as the best value steak. (Click here to see a list of their top 10 value cuts of beef).

Not finding a petite steak in your store? It might also be under the name blade steak or top blade steak. I think it depends on the size of the steak. The smaller version of a blade steak is a petite.

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What is a tip sizzler steak? After much research online, I am still asking myself this question. I could not find anything with the exact name tip sizzler steak, except for the Meijer store web site, which is where I purchased this cut. So maybe they are the only ones using this name. With my research I believe I know about where this cut of beef comes from. By looking at pictures of other cuts, I believe that this steak is from the round area of the cow. It is from the area of the round that is close by to the tenderloin section of the animal. This mean that even thought it is a round steak, it may be one of the most tender round steaks. As you move towards the back of the cow, the meat gets tougher. Since it’s more tender, I can get away with using a dry cooking method (pan-searing), as long as I start off with a marinade.
Now when it comes down to fat. There isn’t a whole lot of marbling with this cut, but there was an area of fat that I found after pan-searing was hard to deal with, so I ended up with a little piece that I didn’t eat.

Click here for my recipe for pan-seared tip sizzler steak.

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If you don’t know what a tip sizzler steak is, check out my post on that topic. Before you cook this steak, it’s best to marinade it first.

Ingredients
2 tip sizzler steaks
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
2 cloves garlic (minced)
kosher salt & freshly ground black pepper
canola oil

Start by combining the Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce into a plastic bag containing the two steaks. Add the minced garlic and place into the fridge for 2 hours. Make sure you put the bag into another container just in case the bag leaks. Remove your steak a half hour before cooking. A room temperature steak will cook better and quicker.

Preheat your oven to 475 degrees. Place a cast iron skillet over medium high heat. Rub a little bit of canola oil on both sides of the steak, then sprinkle some kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. Once the skillet is ready. Place the steak on it. Cook until a nice brown sear has formed and then flip the steak over. This can take about 45-90 seconds per side. When both sides are brown, place the entire thing in the oven. In about 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 minutes, flip the steaks over and cook another 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 minutes. The reason we are finishing it in the oven is that by the time the inside was done, the outside would be black. The oven will gently finish the steak without burning the outside. I learn this tip from watching Alton Brown’s first episode of Good Eats on how to cook a ribeye.

The best way to know if the steak is done is to do 2 things: use an instant read thermometer and learn what the meat feels like when it’s done. When you push the meat it will have some give depending on the temperature you want it. If you do this enough along with a thermometer you will be able to figure out how much give the steak should have when you push it in with a pair of tongs or a fork. If the steak has no give, then you have overcooked it.

It is a skill to learn how to properly cook a steak and a steak like a tip sizzler, is one that can quickly go from tender to tough. Be patient with yourself and learn through trial and error.

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I just got the latest news on what topics are in the works for Good Eats episodes for 2010. No episode names or airdates have been anounced for these topics as of yet, but I will keep you informed of any additional information. Here is the list of the topics that are in production:

Asparagus
Banana Pudding
Tacos
Porterhouse
BBQ Chicken
Grilled Pizza
Pumpkin
Eggs Benedict

A lot of great topics to come! Looking forward to seeing those episodes.

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Have you ever seen a chuck arm steak in a store and wonder what to do with it? Or even what it is? Well I have that answer for you. The chuck arm comes from the chuck primal on the cow. The chuck primal is located towards the head of the cow. The muscles in this area get a lot of work, so the meat tends to be tough. The positive thing is that cuts from this area are plentiful thus cheap. The arm cut is located in the bottom half of the chuck primal. This cut doesn’t have as much fat in it than other cuts of chuck like the chuck eye which is perfect for pot roasts and can be made into a grilled steak. But the arm wouldn’t work as well for either. I definitely would never grill it, as it will be really tough. The only way to cook it is by braising it (which is cooking in a small amount of liquid). Braising the meat low and slow will give the connective tissues time to break down so that when you eat the meat, it won’t be so tough.

Here is how I cooked my chuck arm steak.

1 pound chuck arm steak

2 cups Beef or mushroom broth

4 oz. tomato paste

1 teaspoon dried thyme

kosher salt

canola (or vegetable) oil

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees. Before you begin to braise your meat you have the chance to add some additional flavoring by searing it. Heat up a grill pan (cast iron would be great) over high heat with a little bit of oil in the bottom, just enough to cover. While doing that season both sides of the meat with kosher salt. When the pan is hot in about 4-5 minutes, place the steak on the pan. Wait about 1 minute and then flip and cook for 1 more minute. Since this is a steak cut, so it’s a thinner piece than a roast, we just want to cook it quickly to give it a good sear to add additional flavor. We definitely do not want to cook the steak entirely now. Once the steak is done searing, remove it to a plate.

Now it’s time to prepare the braising liquid. Take the 2 cups of mushroom or beef broth and mix in the 4 oz of tomato paste until combined (the acids in the tomato will help break down connective tissue). Then add 1 teaspoon of dried thyme, mix to combine. Place your steak onto some heavy duty aluminum foil. You will want to completely cover the steak in foil so make sure you have enough. The reason for this is to make the best braise the meat needs to be completely surrounded in the liquid. With the foil you can accomplish that. Just make to place the entire thing in some kind of pan because no matter how good you seal it, there is still a good chance some liquid will escape. Better for it escape into a pan than onto the bottom of your oven.

Place in the oven and cook for about 1 hr 30 minutes to 1 hr 45 minutes. This should give the connective tissues enough time to break down so that the meat will be tender and not long enough to dry out the meat. Alton Brown said in one of his book that meat in the oven acts like a sponge that is being rung out. It’s liquid escapes to the outer surroundings. Since the arm steak has less fat than other chuck cuts, there is a greater chance for the meat to dry out, even though it is surrounded by liquid.

When your meat is done, give it at least 5-10 minutes to rest before cutting into.

So now, next time you see an arm steak in the store you will know what to do with it. It is possible to turn this cheap, tough cut into something to enjoy!