Underappreciated cuts of beef - Red Meat on a budget

[mindlessobserver]

So there you are. Busy family man or wife. Money is tight but you want to treat the other members of the family unit. There are those 4 Ribeye Steaks...for 40 dollars after tax. If you are buying USDA choice factory farm stuff. Lol if you want something decent.

But what is this...4 pounds of Ribeye vs....4 pounds of.....other cuts. Wtf are these and what do I do?

Honestly? I dont really like steak. Because I get so much more enjoyment out of cheap beef.

Eye of Round
Chuck
Sliced Round
Tail
Hangar

Eye of Round: This one is the king IMO of beef cuts. You slow roast it in the oven and you get roast beef. My method is to coat it in Canola oil, cover it in seasonings and put it in a oven set to 500 degrees for 15 minutes. Turn off the oven and without opening it leave it in there for 5 hours. Slice thin and eat how you like. Amazing.

Chuck: it does not say it, but this is the pot roast cut. And it means exactly what it says. You roast it. In a pot. Dry the cut off, on parchment paper put All Purpose Flour, Salt, Pepper and whatever spices you like. Coat the cut in oil and roll it in the flour/seasoning mix. Sear in a fry pan for 2 minutes a side. Throw it it in a pot with a cup of beef stock, carrots, potato and Onion. Cover the pot, put it in the oven and roast at 275 degrees for 4-5 hours. Or on low in a slow cooker for the same time.

Sliced Round: You will see these in the grocery store stupid cheap. It's the butcher getting rid of round roast and handing it to morons who dont know that Round Roast is the origin of Roast Beef. But you are not a moron. Cut it into thin strips and make stirfry. Mexican Fajitas or Asian beef and broccoli.

Tail: you put it in soup. Any soup. Any questions?

Hangar: This is the steak of the Patrician. It does not look like a steak. It sort of resembles the tenderloin from which the filet mignon is derived. It is not tenderloin. It is HANGAR. It is the layer of muscle at the bottom of the cow. It has no steak fat. At all. And it.is.amazing. its not called the butcher's cut for nothing. And it usually costs about the same as, or less than a ribeye. Dont ask why. No questions.

Roll it in oil and seasonings like the ribeye. Then cook it in a fry pan on medium heat. 3 minutes a side for rare. 4 minutes a side for mid rare and so on. It has 4 sides btw. In another pan make a sauce. Either mushroom marsala or balsamic reduction. Or just eat as is. It's super tender with a strong beef flavor. Slice with the grain into rounds. Put on sauce or without sauce with some salt and pepper.

What do you guys do with cheap beef?

 

[Rand /pol/]

[insert generic sex joke here]

 

[Y2K Baby]

@bearycool

 

[Megaroad 2012]

slowbeef.

 

[MediocreMilt]

muh dick

 

[Pee Cola]

I dunno what it's called elsewhere, but in the Antipodes its called gravy beef. Usually taken from the shins and the neck. May or not be sold with the bone in. It's what you want if you're cooking a stew or a curry.

 

[Ivan Shatov]

Right. So OP, this is the least imaginative use of cheap cuts. Why are you humble bragging about basic recipes?

I don't see a mention of a smoker in your post. If you're not going to put in the effort, why make beef at all? Your family would be happier with straight soy.

With Hanger Steak - I usually use that for Carne Asada. Put it in a bag with soy sauce, oil, S&P, red pepper flakes, and lime for a couple days. Cook it at high heat and roll your own tortillas.

With Chuck - that goes into stews. I chop it up into small pieces, sear it, then toss it in a put with potatoes, vegetables, chicken stock, a couple hefeweizens and spices. Cook at low for about 6 hours and never do this with a crock pot - entirely different flavor.

With Sliced Round - the minimum I would do is get the thickest cut possible, butterfly it to around 1/4' thick, fill the insides with a combination of whatever, roll it up into a log, sear the thing then bake in the oven at 225 for about 3 hours. Use the drippings to make a glaze, take a picture and brag about it on Instagram.

With Tail - learn Vietnamese and ask someone who makes Pho. The only thing I know about Tail is it's only good when it's sliced extremely thin.

If this is about cost, you should be looking at Brisket. Packer cuts at my butcher are like $3 a pound. I cook them with mesquite and hickory at 225 for 12 hours, comes out about the consistency of butter and tastes better than Ribeye. Serve with white bread, pickle chips and your favorite beer. Save the trimmings for chili, make use of the leftovers in all sorts of other dishes. I usually buy 20lbs cuts and make Brisket Hash a couple days after.

The other thing - find a beef wholesaler. If you are buying cheap cuts from the grocery store, you are buying the absolute worst quality and it probably shows in your meals. Restaurant Depot is open to the public atm, you can buy boxes of these cuts prime and get two or three times the quantity. You are talking about cheap cuts, they don't really suffer from freezing as long as they're properly wrapped.

The other, other thing - get a copy of the Joy of Cooking, or anything that deals with the French system. Learn how to make sauces, there's an art to it you can master. It sounds like you are just stuffing things in pans and ovens which is the absolute least you could be doing. Hanger Steak especially - there's ways to make that 10x better than what you are doing now.

 

[Harvey Danger]

If you have a slow cooker/Crock Pot (and you should):

Throw a chuck roast or bottom round in a slow cooker. Sprinkle a packet of powdered French onion soup mix onto it. Cover with 2 cans of condensed cream of mushroom soup. Let it cook 8-10 hours, check every few hours to baste with its juices.

When it's fork tender, take it out and put it on a tray. You can either cut it into chunks or shred it with 2 forks. Serve over egg noodles, with the juices from the slow cooker as a gravy (thicken it up if you like). You can also do a version with quartered potatoes and carrots for a more traditional roast serving, but I'm lazy and dropping a bag of egg noodles in a pot of water is easy mode prep.

 

[Jaded Optimist]

How is a hangar steak under appreciated? It's probably the hardest cut to find. My butcher gets 2-3 in a week and they get taken right away.

I'd say the thinner end of a skirt is under appreciated. Same texture and deep flavour as a hanger if grilled hot and fast. Honestly I think I like a quick grilled nice piece of skirt better than any other cut.

 

[mindlessobserver]

Right. So OP, this is the least imaginative use of cheap cuts. Why are you humble bragging about basic recipes?

I don't see a mention of a smoker in your post. If you're not going to put in the effort, why make beef at all? Your family would be happier with straight soy.

With Hanger Steak - I usually use that for Carne Asada. Put it in a bag with soy sauce, oil, S&P, red pepper flakes, and lime for a couple days. Cook it at high heat and roll your own tortillas.

With Chuck - that goes into stews. I chop it up into small pieces, sear it, then toss it in a put with potatoes, vegetables, chicken stock, a couple hefeweizens and spices. Cook at low for about 6 hours and never do this with a crock pot - entirely different flavor.

With Sliced Round - the minimum I would do is get the thickest cut possible, butterfly it to around 1/4' thick, fill the insides with a combination of whatever, roll it up into a log, sear the thing then bake in the oven at 225 for about 3 hours. Use the drippings to make a glaze, take a picture and brag about it on Instagram.

With Tail - learn Vietnamese and ask someone who makes Pho. The only thing I know about Tail is it's only good when it's sliced extremely thin.

If this is about cost, you should be looking at Brisket. Packer cuts at my butcher are like $3 a pound. I cook them with mesquite and hickory at 225 for 12 hours, comes out about the consistency of butter and tastes better than Ribeye. Serve with white bread, pickle chips and your favorite beer. Save the trimmings for chili, make use of the leftovers in all sorts of other dishes. I usually buy 20lbs cuts and make Brisket Hash a couple days after.

The other thing - find a beef wholesaler. If you are buying cheap cuts from the grocery store, you are buying the absolute worst quality and it probably shows in your meals. Restaurant Depot is open to the public atm, you can buy boxes of these cuts prime and get two or three times the quantity. You are talking about cheap cuts, they don't really suffer from freezing as long as they're properly wrapped.

The other, other thing - get a copy of the Joy of Cooking, or anything that deals with the French system. Learn how to make sauces, there's an art to it you can master. It sounds like you are just stuffing things in pans and ovens which is the absolute least you could be doing. Hanger Steak especially - there's ways to make that 10x better than what you are doing now.

The OP is for someone who has never cooked a chuck roast ever. Also using hangar steak for anything other then steak is heresy. Just go take a prime ribeye and make beef stew while you are at it.

How is a hangar steak under appreciated? It's probably the hardest cut to find. My butcher gets 2-3 in a week and they get taken right away.

I'd say the thinner end of a skirt is under appreciated. Same texture and deep flavour as a hanger if grilled hot and fast. Honestly I think I like a quick grilled nice piece of skirt better than any other cut.

I have found most people dont know about it. It tends to appear at whole foods for 8.99 a pound in their butcher section and just gets ignored.

 

[queerape]

I found this channel called Guga foods by a Brazilian chef where they use techniques like sous vide and grilling on various cuts of beef and other meats. There was one where they had him cook a whole bunch of mystery meats and he wasn't told what they were until the end.

 

[BoingBoingBoi]

i like da poo poo

 

[XYZpdq]

Ox tail costs real meat money around my area ;_;

 

[The best and greatest]

Do round/minute steaks count as underappreciated? Even though they're cheap and unassuming cuts they can be surprisingly hard to get just right. Crusty on the outside and just shy of well-done on the inside.

 

[Orion Balls]

Cheeks. They need to be braised for a long long time, but it's one hundred percent worth it.

Restaurant Depot is open to the public atm, you can buy boxes of these cuts prime and get two or three times the quantity.

Yo. It's hard enough getting meat right now at the Depot without telling regular folks to head on down there.

 

[Too Many Catgirls]

I can make one of my favorite dishes with a cut of chuck. The recipe is similar to what is in the OP, except you use a lot more red wine. That stuff comes out tender and delicious.

 

[StrawberryDouche]

Sure, chuck is great for a roast. But you see all that marbling in there? That's a steak, fuckers. Grill it. It will rival a rib eye. Sometimes you can find the chuck eye by itself for a fraction of the cost of a sirloin or rib eye.

 

[Pee Cola]

Sure, chuck is great for a roast. But you see all that marbling in there? That's a steak, fuckers. Grill it. It will rival a rib eye. Sometimes you can find the chuck eye by itself for a fraction of the cost of a sirloin or rib eye.

True. I'd rather have a chuck steak cooked by someone that knows what they're doing than a sirloin or rib eye cooked by someone that has nfi how to cook a steak. Now there's a rabbit hole for another thread...

 

[Ivan Shatov]

Yo. It's hard enough getting meat right now at the Depot without telling regular folks to head on down there.

You must buy a lot of meat when you go.

Those hotel carts they make you shop with are insane. Last time I went, the dude at the register forgot to ring up 20 lbs of Ribeyes. But he did charge me twice for a pizza wheel, which I guess made us even.

 

[Positron]

THE TONGUE! Just tongue! Totally boneless, with the right amount of connective tissue to give a bit of firmness.
The tail is very flavorful but there isn't not too much meat.