Posted: 8/26/2011 9:01:06 AM EDT
| Braised beef shank for dinner tonight, all veggies from garden, and some port to finish it off. Cheap cuts can be some of the best eating if treated right. Anyone else make this regularly? |
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Cheaper cuts of meat are fantastic, when cooked low and slow. One of my ways of saving money, is to make chili all the time. Tough cuts of meat are perfect for it, and they're always cheap. They get nice and tender after a couple hours of cooking, and retain tons of flavor. |
Sounds good. I have a friend who is moving to Austria this week. Over the winter he decided that he and his wife needed an elk, an antelope, and a deer. He got all of those, plus a side of beef. So last week he dropped off a huge plastic bin full of cuts of all kinds from all four of those animals. Gonna be hard to eat it all before elk season comes back around. 
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Being a poor college student, but cooking every meal I eat, I have learned to turn the "low end" cuts of meat into masterpieces. Some shallots, mushrooms, and some White Zin with various herbs added in can make a huge difference by itself. The biggest secret is how you cut the steak when you are eating it. Cut against the grain (cutting the grain as short as possible) and it will be substantially more tender. The only other way to get it really tender is to braise it in something. Nothing something a nice Cab can not fix. |
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Cheap beef low and slow is a great inexpensive meal. Last Sunday I cut a really cheap round roast into 1/2 inch slices, coated in flour and seared then deglazed with some inexpensive red wine, add some onions, carrots, celery, some herbs, (all from the garden) some homemade tomato sauce, let it cook on a low simmer for 3 hours, add some diced pepper and cook a little longer, then serve over homemade pasta.
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Quoted:
Cheap beef low and slow is a great inexpensive meal. Last Sunday I cut a really cheap round roast into 1/2 inch slices, coated in flour and seared then deglazed with some inexpensive red wine, add some onions, carrots, celery, some herbs, (all from the garden) some homemade tomato sauce, let it cook on a low simmer for 3 hours, add some diced pepper and cook a little longer, then serve over homemade pasta. Nice
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I only buy beef when it looks right. Lately, I only buy it when it looks right, AND is on sale at a good price. Some of the "lesser" cuts of beef have a richer taste than some of the finer cuts, even if they're not as delightful to chew on. As has been mentioned a few times already, the right cooking method can fix all that. Rather than buy so-so looking beef, or peak beef, I'm happy to buy pork (again, when it looks right to me), or chicken. Pork and chicken cost a bit more than they used to, certainly, but they're still a good bit less than beef. I really like pork sirloin, or boneless chicken thighs. My wife makes a really perfect baked chicken, and gets whole chickens at about $1.50/lb. |