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Choosing a Perfect Steak: Know Your Steak Cuts

Chefs are taught a lot about cooking steaks, but you can still go to a restaurant and have an impactful experience.

At home, the game of serving an always tender and tasty steak gets even more difficult.

I’ll follow up with an article on how to cook the perfect steak, but before I get to that, I’ll tackle the most critical factor in choosing the right cut.

Here are some tips for selecting the right steak. The choice of the grade of meat will follow in a future article.

Choose a good cut

The steak varies greatly in quality.

First of all, you need to select the right cut for your needs, budget, and appetite. Here’s a quick list of cuts of meat that we can and can definitely classify as ‘steak’, as well as a few other common names.

Sirloin (beef fillet, tournedos, eye fillet)

This is the ‘premium’ cut and the most tender with the least fat.

A good quality grain fed or Wagyu loin will have a lot of fat marbled through the meat, but this cut must be cut from all tendons and will have no fat on the outside. This is the most expensive and most tender cut, but rib steaks have the most flavor.

Sirloins are also usually smaller steaks. Probably the smallest of all the cuts.

Restaurant servings average 180-250g and it is boneless and fat free.

A double cut from the head of the loin is called a Chateaubriand.

Braised sirloin can be baked in puff pastry, whole or in individual portions, with mushroom duxelles or pate. This is called “Beef Wellington”.

Rib Eye, Scottish steak and Prime Rib

Rib steaks are very tasty and can be very tender.

The rib has a large chunk of moist fat running through the center. This is normal. Leave it there as it flavors the meat and keeps it moist.

A rib is a rib steak: the bone is cut. This is also known as Scottish steak or ‘cube roll’

The first rib or “OP Rib” is a rib with the bone still in it. Like a huge lamb chop, but beef.

Cooking on the bone always gives a lot more flavor, but it takes a little longer to cook.

A prime rib is a premium cut. The Prime Rib lives up to the Porterhouse as one of the largest cuts of meat, and it’s definitely the tastiest.

Expect a prime rib to be 450g to 550g.

A rib steak will cost between 250 grams for the can, up to 300 grams for the medium or 400 grams for the bulk.

Sirloin, Entrecote, Tenderloin, Strip New York

This is the ‘third best’ cut and the best value.

It typically ranges in size between a tenderloin and a rib eye steak as well.

The tenderloin or sirloin has a thick fat along the top that should be trimmed to about 1cm thick. It should not be cut completely, as it drizzles the meat as it cooks and keeps it moist.

Sirloin is very tasty and an excellent cut, but it can be difficult if you are not very careful when choosing the brand or grade of meat. A ‘standard’ portion is 250 grams, with a large fillet 350 to 400 grams.

T-Bone and Porterhouse

This is a bone-in ‘blended’ steak.

The bone is shaped like a “T”. One side of the “T” is a steak or sirloin, the other side is a sirloin. Both are attached to the bone.

these are the same steak except the Porterhouse is cut from the back of the tenderloin where the piece of steak is large and meaty.

the front of the short tenderloin is where the steak begins to get smaller, which is why these steaks with smaller pieces of tenderloin attached are called “T-Bone”

These are excellent steaks, usually large. A thick cut steak is probably the largest steak in the lot. Wait about 550 grams

Rump steak

This is the ‘butt’ of the animal. A plump buttock with an outer layer of fat that can be trimmed to an acceptable level.

The rump is probably the ‘driest’ steak, with the least marbling through the meat compared to the other premium cuts above.

The rump can have a great texture and flavor.

Often the rump is cut along the grain for a large piece of flavorful meat.

This can be a disadvantage because in this way the grain will run in different directions through the different muscles of the rump.

This means that some parts will be stronger than others.

The steak should be cut along the grain of the meat for best results.

One solution for this is to ‘cut the seams’ or divide an entire rump into different muscles and then cut each one along the grain into smaller fillets.

A rump will cost around 250 grams if the seam is cut, up to 400 or 500 grams in all muscles.

Minor cuts

Skirt steak and skirt steak

These are cut from the abdomen or belly of the meat and have a very specific texture. They are well seasoned and seared over high heat, but do not have the typical ‘steak’ appeal of previous premium cuts.

Bad steaks

Any other cut is not a steak.

Supermarkets and “creative” butchers pass a lot of leg or shoulder meat as “steak.”

Are not.

The round ‘steak’, for example, is a dry, tougher piece of meat that is not suitable for grilling or frying in a pan. You can mechanically break it down or soften it, but it is not as suitable for grilling and it will always be tougher.

Chuck steak is not steak. It’s stewed meat.

Choosing a good grade of meat can give you a tender enough eating experience from an undercut, but cuts of meat from the same animal will always be tastier and much more tender.

A cut of meat will also not always guarantee tender meat. Some animals just have tough meat. Even the sirloin.

A steak is the most tender part of meat, which we call a ‘first-class cut’ because it is suitable for quick cooking methods such as broiling, broiling, or pan frying.

“Barbecue steak”, “Inexpensive steak” and the like are gimmicks. They are based on price, not taste or tenderness.

If that’s okay with you, go ahead. But for the best flavor and a tender piece of meat, choose the cuts above.

My next article will be on choosing the correct grade of beef to ensure your steak is consistently tender and flavorful.

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