Steak Cuts Explained
Alright, now we’re going to look at a couple of different steaks and what you’re getting
when you buy them. Alright, two types of steaks, same way of cooking them, two results.
Couple of reasons why there's two results, basically these two steaks came from the same
cow. This cow has been beautifully raised on pastures all up and down Bruce Peninsula.
It was finished on some grain for the last couple of weeks, sorry last couple of months of
its life. That gives it a nice fat content that makes it taste so good in your mouth.
However, this is the two different steaks I pulled these out because I want to showcase
why certain things cost a little bit more money. Now, we’re looking at two cuts of the
beef here. This is the bone and rib chop and this is the top sirloin steak. Now, you can
obviously tell the difference right off the bat right? One has more fat, one looks a little bit
more dry.
The reason is, if you look at the rib steak, we dry age this for about 21 to 28 days. So you
have a little bit of a dry color on this. And you can notice it because when you hang the
whole piece, you hang the whole rib to dry it out. This is an interior muscle so you
wouldn’t see that dryness on it. You see the beautiful ruby color of the steak meat itself.
Tenderness wise, the rib steak is going to beat this everytime because at sirloin it’s a bit
of more of a working muscle. What that means is that the cow needs to use that top
sirloin which is for the top of the butt here to make sure that it can walk properly and all
those things. So obviously this must be a little bit more tough than the rib muscle which
just being underneath your ribs here towards the spine, doesn’t work as hard as this
muscles.
So it's going to be a little bit more tender. It's also a be a little bit fattier just because it sits
in an area where it can build up a lot of fat as opposed to the sirloin, it's working a lot. It's
going to burn that fat around. Now when you cook it, you do the same thing. You fire
your barbeque up on high, salt and pepper or say you want to do it in a pan actually,
colder winter outside, not so much barbecuing going on.
So you got a cast iron pan, you season these up the same way, salt and pepper. You put a
little bit of oil on these not in your pan. Oil, rub the oil on the meat itself, you let that sit,
come up to a room temperature, crack open a beer bottle or wine, whatever do what you
got to do. Get your pan scorching hot and then you throw that steak right in the pan and
you sear it.
And basically what you’re doing is you’re caramelizing the meat and you get a nice crisp
crunch on that steak which is what you want because you don’t want a boiled look to
your steak, no body likes that. So you sear that on one side. It takes about three minutes.
Flip it over. Sear it on the other side about another three minutes.
Both these steaks are about the same thickness. It should be cut nice and thick about an
inch and a half to two inches. That way, when you’re done searing it, you get a nice crisp
coating on each side of that steak. You end up -- after you’re done searing it you end up
having a nice medium rare color in the middle. So you’re looking for a nice rosy pink
color right in the middle of your steak.
Three minutes on each side, they should both be done. The rib steak will be a little bit
more rich because the fat, the marbling through it is a lot more heavy marbling than the
sirloin. And also you have that bone there so you have a lot of flavor around the bone.
This, a lot more lean, like a lot of people like it for that a lot like they just want that
protein punch. So they’ll get that, other than that, no problem.
The other thing we consider is the price difference. Well this can go up to $15.00 for one
steak, $15.20 for one steak. This, you’re looking at about $4.00 to $5.00per steak. Okay,
difference size, too. So you know one rib steak might be enough for two people or one if
you’re me. This might be enough for, well I might need two but that’s just me. So yeah,
that’s the difference between two very different cuts of steak but both very satisfying
meals.
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