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What's For Dinner, Take 7


Xray the Enforcer

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Thanks Larry!

I find cuts of meat confusing and we bought some round eye steaks not realizing that literally the first Google result for "round eye steaks" was an article titled "Round eye steaks are one of the few irredeemable cuts of meat."

We ended up slicing it into thin strips and stir frying it, which was reasonably acceptable. I wish it were easier to know what cuts of meat are what and that they didn't frequently have multiple names. ("Boston butt" for shoulder is particularly egregious, but at least that one I was forewarned about.)

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Create a cheat sheet and put it on your phone. That's the easiest way to navigate this space until you learn more about it. I've made similarly infelicitous purchases in the past before I really bent my mind to learning about it. Next easiest is to buy from an actual butcher instead of just picking stuff up at a grocery store that doesn't have a butcher counter. If I'm unfamiliar with something, I ask what it is, and the recommended cooking method to use on it. 

If I were creating a cheatsheet, I'd organize first by animal, and then by cooking method. That way, I'll have an idea of what kind of meal (grilled, stew, braise, etc) I'm going to be getting out of any given cut and can shop accordingly.

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Yeah, even with a but her counter, I've found uneven results at the grocery store.  After moving back east after a few years our west, I asked for tritips regularly and was greeted with blank stares at worst or a tri-tip hacked to buts at best since 2008.  Until last summer when all the main chain groceries in the greater Albany area suddenly started shelving whole tri-tip s.  I even googled it and printed out the wiki article and handed it to the meat counter.  

In my humble opinion it is still probably the best cut of beef that you can score for $7 a pound.

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3 hours ago, Inigima said:

That's a great idea, thanks xray.

De nada. For some people, that method may not work. But I'm the kind of person who already kind of knows what kind of meal I'm angling for before I head out (stew vs. pan-fry, i.e. wet heat vs. dry heat), so that kind of classification works for me. Anything I impulse buy, I'm either doing it because I'm curious or because it's a dry-aged ribeye.

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also, to kind of converse xrays excellent advice, I'd say hunt down and bookmark a few videos/recipes relevant to various  cuts (partial to some good eats primers for the basics myself). I am of the opinion there is no real 'bad' cut of meat, just poor preparation (and of course shitty purveyors, but that's another issue), so don't be afraid to go wild over something cheap or on sale

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  • 3 weeks later...

Bacon - accept it in all its glory or gtfo. We buy good bacon and use it sparingly. For some dishes, e.g. pasta or risotto it's almost like a seasoning, you don't even need that much. Very occasionally, if we have spare homemade bread we'll have a bacon sandwich for lunch or dinner. 

No idea about freezing wine. But I probably wouldn't. We tend to mostly use it for cooking only. So it just stays in the fridge.

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4 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

That's a shopping list, not a meal.  What did you do with them?

Bacon, to trim the fat or not?

Freezing wine to use in sauces, acceptable or not?

no. bacon has the amount of fat it is supposed to have! take it from me.  i make 300 pounds a week.

don't freeze wine.  drink it or cook with it. 

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I don't cook with 'good wine', it's a waste. Just stick it in the fridge and drink it next time.

NB. To be clear, I don't cook with 'bad wine' (or beer for that matter) but there's a lot of scope between good and bad. 

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