Here are some assorted hints to help you with your meat cooking.
Beef. This list from the National Cattlemen’s Association gives you beef steaks with decreasing degree of tenderness.
¨ Tenderloin
¨ Chuck top blade
¨ Top loin
¨ Porterhouse/T-bone
¨ Rib
¨ Rib-eye
¨ Chuck-eye
¨ Round tip
¨ Top sirloin
¨ Chopped steak
Veal. Veal comes from young cattle. It is a very tender, light-colored meat with little or no fat and connective tissue. They market virtually all veal and calf fresh (not frozen). The meat has a high moisture content and doesn’t improve with aging as beef does, so you want to use it soon after purchase.
Baby veal is the most tender and lightest in color of all veal but with very little flavor. It comes from baby animals of mere 2 or 3 days old that weigh between 22 and 55 pounds (10 and 25 kg) (not much more than a large tom turkey).
Meat labeled veal comes from slightly older 1 to 3-month old animals that were entirely milk-fed. The meat is white (there is no iron in milk that would darken the color). If the veal is not white, the animal had supplemental feed, that turns the color pink. Meat labeled calf is still from a young animal in the 3 to 8-month range, just a little older than veal. Calf meat is tender but no longer a light pink color.
Baby beef is another category you occasionally see at the meat counter. This comes from immature, 7 to 10-month old cattle. Ranchers usually sell these when economic reasons or adverse weather conditions force them to reduce herd size. Although low-priced, this meat isn’t a good buy because these young animals have already lost the desirable characteristics of veal, but haven’t yet developed the true beef flavor and marbling.
By itself, veal is dry with little flavor. Its low fat and high moisture content does poorly in dry heat cooking. It is best if you sauté veal (because frying oil adds lubrication), or serve it in rich sauces or with high-fat fillings. Retail cuts of veal are similar to beef, but the size is smaller-veal round steak, for example, is smaller than a beef round steak.
Pork. Because pork used to be much fatter, you may have to alter recipes from older cookbooks. Add a little more liquid and baste more frequently to compensation for today’s leaner pork.
Like other red meats, pork is best when you roast it slowly at a low oven temperature. If you rush it, you’ll lose more liquid and a hard outside crust forms that heat cannot penetrate evenly. Part of the roast may be done while the rest is still pink. The hard crust also makes carving thin slices difficult.
Cured pork cuts. Salt pork and some brine-cured hams (Virginia and Smithfield, for example) are too salty for many people’s tastes. The answer is to soak some of the salt out. If it is a whole ham, soak it for 24 hours, changing the water many times. A small piece of salt pork takes much less time. Cover it with cold water, bring it to a boil, and simmer for 3 to 4 minutes.
Salt content, age of the meat and texture all make a difference. No exact timeline exists to guide you how long to soak a particular piece of salted meat. Let the piece of meat soak a while and then give it a lick test. Keep doing this until you are satisfied with the flavor.
Bacon. Have you ever wondered how much edible meat you actually get when you buy bacon? I selected three different brands: a high-quality bacon from a butcher shop, a better quality bacon from a supermarket deli counter and a standard lower-priced, but not bottom-of the-line brand, from the supermarket display case. I carefully weighed each batch on a laboratory scale and fried them to identical crispness, then weighed the final edible portions again.
The butcher shop bacon and the better-quality supermarket bacon yielded close to the same amount of meat-about 35 percent of the original weight. The standard brand only yielded 27.5 percent.What I lost, nearly three-quarters of the total, was fat and water. The higher-priced bacon had better flavor and the cost per pound (or per kilo) of the edible portion worked out about the same as of the lower-priced bacon.
When you buy bacon, it is more economical to buy a better-quality package and you get a better flavor. Considering such a high loss, bacon costs more than most of the highest-quality meats.
In fact, the price of the edible portion is only just below the price of the highest-priced item in the butcher’s display, fully trimmed beef tenderloin steak or filet mignon.
Lamb. Lamb has a delicate flavor, but to retain it without a gamy overtone, know how to cook it properly. Lamb fat is a hard fat with a lower smoking point than other animal fats, and it burns easily if the temperature is too high. Once it burns, it develops an unpleasant odor and flavor. Never roast lamb in an oven higher than 325°F (165°C).
Leg of lamb has a thin membrane completely surrounding the meat, separating it from the fat layer. This is called the fell. The butcher doesn’t remove it because it holds the bundle of muscle together and helps to retain moisture during cooking. It should be removed, however, in steaks and chops. If it is still there, simply pull it off with your fingers.
If you don’t do this before grilling or broiling, the heat shrinks the fell and makes the meat buckle-as a result it browns unevenly and looks unappealing. Scoring the fell in several places also helps to avoid curling. The term spring lamb refers to the very tender meat from lambs born in the spring, but in North America today it has no meaning because of improved shipping. Lamb ranchers and processors provide young, tender, spring-lamb quality meat year round.
In California, Arkansas and parts of the South, young lambs are born in the fall and flourish in the mild winter. They provide tender meat before the true spring lambs are born in cooler parts of the country.