Buying meat for braising: does quality matter?

[Fat Guy]

Lobel's, the preeminent Madison Avenue butcher, makes the following claim in the online "Official Lobel's Guide to Meat."

The quality of meat is the same in every section of the animal's carcass. A prime steer yields all prime cuts. The same is true for the choice and select grades.

Prime quality beef has better flavor and texture -- this includes the less expensive cuts chosen for pot roasts, stews and casseroles. Even in variety cuts such as oxtails, sweetbreads and calves' brains, the quality of the meat affects the taste of the final dish.

Does prime meat really taste any different from choice after three and a half hours of braising? Also, assuming there are differences, why would the prime be better for braising? Prime steaks are better because of their marbled fat, but the whole point with braising cuts is that you create tenderness through long, slow cooking. Thoughts?

[david coonce]

Lobel's, the preeminent Madison Avenue butcher, makes the following claim in the online "Official Lobel's Guide to Meat."

The quality of meat is the same in every section of the animal's carcass. A prime steer yields all prime cuts. The same is true for the choice and select grades.

Prime quality beef has better flavor and texture -- this includes the less expensive cuts chosen for pot roasts, stews and casseroles. Even in variety cuts such as oxtails, sweetbreads and calves' brains, the quality of the meat affects the taste of the final dish.

Does prime meat really taste any different from choice after three and a half hours of braising? Also, assuming there are differences, why would the prime be better for braising? Prime steaks are better because of their marbled fat, but the whole point with braising cuts is that you create tenderness through long, slow cooking. Thoughts?

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While I would agree that braising is a good way to make an inexpensive cut of meat palatable (or even edible), imagine what it does to a great cut of meat? I get local, grass-fed beef shanks/ribs here in town and the quality of the dishes I get out of them is far superior to any supermarket beef I've ever tried. It's why food at great restaurants tastes better than you make at home. Better ingredients makes better food, whether it's baby carrots or new potatoes or beef ribs. Start with good ingredients, and everything else takes care of itself, in my opinion.

[markk]

This can be asked of many things, too, not just meat (not avoiding the question, just commenting).

My grandmother, who was a great cook, was a refugee from Eastern Europe, and a cuisine based, well, not on luxury ingredients. People in the family used the saying that "she could make you a delicious meal out of a partially rotten onion, the scrapings from yesterday's carrot, and a piece of shoe leather". Certainly the idea of prime meat for stewing was the farthest thing from what she cooked.

But back on topic, it's the fat in meat that melts during cooking and breaks down the connective tissue in it, so it does make sense that a fatty piece of meat would yeild better results. And come to think of it, I've had lots of stewed meat that was tender from long cooking, but really dry, even though it had a moist cooking process. So maybe there is something to this.

[Fat Guy]

I'm sure we have plenty of folks around here who can dig deeper into the science of it, but if the meat is dry it's usually because it's overcooked -- you can braise for too long and that's what happens.

[Carlovski]

I think I asked this in another thread, once, but I can't find it...

I'm not convinced that the USDA grading (As little as I understand it) would be that relevant - other factors such as upkeep, breed, quality of butchery would be much more important. Also older animals usually yield the best braising cuts which is not usually true for 'prime' cuts.

Better ingredients do make better dishes, but the criteria for what makes a cut better will depend on that cut, and the dish you are preparing.

[markk]

I'm sure we have plenty of folks around here who can dig deeper into the science of it, but if the meat is dry it's usually because it's overcooked -- you can braise for too long and that's what happens.

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What I meant to say is that I've braised lots of supermarket (choice/select but obviously not prime) beef without overcooking it, but rather just until it 'breaks' and softens, and found it dry, so maybe prime beef, when it gets to the point of fork-tenderness, still has "residual fat" left to make it juicy. I'm speculating here. And maybe with today's leaner beef, that's the way to go to compensate.

[slkinsey]

...it's the fat in meat that melts during cooking and breaks down the connective tissue in it, so it does make sense that a fatty piece of meat would yeild better results...

According to my understanding, this is not correct. When we speak of "connective tissue" in this context, we are talking about collagen, which with the addition of heat, time and a few water molecules, is hydrolyzed into gelatin. As far as I know, fat doesn't have anything to do with this reaction. Fat is important, however, as I'll get to down below...

I'm sure we have plenty of folks around here who can dig deeper into the science of it, but if the meat is dry it's usually because it's overcooked -- you can braise for too long and that's what happens.

Any time you braise, you're playing a kind of balancing game. You want to cook the meat long enough to convert the collagen into gelatin. This makes the meat tender, and also provides that unctuous, silken texture that can be so wonderful about braised meats. Gelatin also does a good job of holding moisture, which is important. It's important because cooking meat at braising times/temperatures also has the effect of squeezing water out of muscle fibers. This is also known as "making the meat dry." If there's a good amount of fat in the meat, that's good too. You want to melt that fat to provide additional lubrication to make up for the water that the muscle fibers have given up.

If the meat is cooked too long, the lubricating properties of the collagen and fat simply cannot keep up with the drying effect as more and more water is lost from the muscle fibers and the result is dry, mealy meat.

There are several things you can do:

First, you can cook the meat at a low temperature. Collagen will convert into gelatin at lower-than-simmering temperatures, it just takes a lot longer. The nice thing is that you don't go over the temperature at which muscle fibers lose most of their water. Long time/low temperature sous vide techniques take advantage of this. The drawback is that it can take up to 48 hours. Second, you can start out the braise at a low temperature for a few hours. If you carefully manage the pot and keep the meat at around 115F/45C for a few hours, you can reduce the amount of time the meat needs to spend at 180F/80C. Finally, once you get the pot up to finishing temperature, stop the cooking as soon as the meat is tender. It won't improve at all once it reaches this point.

As for whether prime beef makes a difference... that's hard to say. Just thinking about it objectively, it's hard to see how the things that make beef "prime" would make a big difference in a braise. I'd think that flavorful braising beef would be from well-worked muscles with lots of connective tissue, which doesn't seem like a "prime" thing. On the other hand, it's clear that not all braising meat is created equal. I've made the exact same beef tagine with supermarket-grade chuck from Fairway and with high-quality chuck from Oppenheimer Meats. The Oppenheimer beef produced a much better tagine. Whether this was prime beef, I couldn't say.

So, my own experience is that the quality of the meat does make a difference (albeit probably not as much difference as technique). I also think that the "prime" designation is not important and that there are other indicators one can look for in selecting a braising cut.

[Shalmanese]

I asked this question a while back but got no replies. A few months ago, I had the oppurtunity to empirically test it. I bought 2 chuck roasts which I broke down into stew meat. One of the roasts was noticably less marbled than the other. I used the same muscle in each roast and added them 50/50 into a cauliflower curry I was making.

The meat with more marbling was noticably more juicy and tasty than the less marbled one. When you bit through it, the marbling pattern was still very much evident in the meat and you could taste the fat lubricating the fibres.

One caveat though was that the meat was marinated overnight in a yogurt marinade and was not browned before cooking. Because of the marinade, the meat was done in less than an hour. I don't know how browning or extended braising would affect the picture but that's one data point for you.

I wouldn't go out of my way to buy prime meat for braising unless you have $$$ up the wazoo but I usually try and pick the best marbled specimin from the display case and, since I'm reasonably friendly with the butcher, I sometimes ask him if he has better stuff out back if whats in the window looks a bit scraggly.

[slkinsey]

It also strikes me that, while I'm not entirely sure what parts of the carcass are judged for the USDA grading, I have the feeling that it doesn't necessarily follow that prime chuck has more fat and better marbling than choice chuck. This idea is reinforced by the Wikipedia information on beef grading, which says: "The grades are based on two main criteria, the degree of marbling (intramuscular fat) in the beef rib eye and the age of the animal prior to slaughter." I'm not sure what the quality of the rib eye says about the quality of the chuck, but it's clear to me that there are cases in animals where the distribution of body fat is not even. Just look at humans: some have lots of fat in the stomach and practically none in the legs, and some have a more or less even distribution of fat. If you're "grading" humans according to an examination of the lower torso, it seems clear that there can still be wide differences in the amount of fat in, e.g., the lower leg.

[markk]

...it's the fat in meat that melts during cooking and breaks down the connective tissue in it, so it does make sense that a fatty piece of meat would yeild better results...

According to my understanding, this is not correct. When we speak of "connective tissue" in this context, we are talking about collagen, which with the addition of heat, time and a few water molecules, is hydrolyzed into gelatin. As far as I know, fat doesn't have anything to do with this reaction.

Given enough time to find it () I can probably quote you what I can only paraphrase now from McGee's book, that separate from the collagen process that you describe, there's also an action in which hot fat that melts and goes through meat as it cooks, breaks apart the acto-mysoin cell structure, acting in the same way that fat is used to "shorten" and tenderize the protein in wheat during baking. And this is exactly why you see French butchers 'barding' strands of firm white fat through the collagen-less sections of beef roasts.

But on a philosophical note, I was ruminating all morning on how I have sort of gvien up making certain braises like brisket, because I find that the meat has been bred to be so lean that I can no longer get a pleasing result, in the same way I've abandoned commercial pork, no longer enjoyable to me. Then I realized that we've now turned to pork that's bred to be fattier and more flavorful, and came to the conclusion that I might indeed want to try a prime brisket the next time I make one.

[markk]

Just look at humans: some have lots of fat in the stomach and practically none in the legs,

Aren't you specifically referring to a layer of fatty deposit under the skin in those areas, whereas 'prime' would address marbling within the muscles?

[slkinsey]

I'm not saying that fat isn't important. Just that it's not part of the collagen-to-gelatin reaction, aka the "breaking down connective tissue" to which we most commonly refer in the context of meat cookery. Fat is, itself, a connective tissue, so to the extent that it melts it is doing some "breaking down of connective tissue." But this is relatively trivial compared to the collagen-to-gelatin reaction in a braising cut. As LT/LT sous vide cooking demonstrates, converting collagen to gelatin without melting out most of the fat still results in very tender meat, whereas the opposite is definitely not the case.

On page 131 of the new edition, McGee says:

Fat contributes to the apparent tenderness of meat in three ways: fat cells interrupt and weaken the sheet of connective tissue and the mass of muscle fibers; fat melts when heated rather than drying out and stiffening as the muscle fibers do; and it lubricates the tissue, helping to separate fiber from fiber.

Aren't you specifically referring to a layer of fatty deposit under the skin in those areas, whereas 'prime' would address marbling within the muscles?

My larger point was simply that it's unclear to me that desirable fat characteristics in one part of a carcass necessarily mean desirable fat characteristics in all parts of the carcass. Looking at my own body, I can pretty much guarantee that the marbling of fat in meat taken from my midsection will be far greater than it would be in meat taken from my calf.

[annecros]

I'm not saying that fat isn't important.  Just that it's not part of the collagen-to-gelatin reaction, aka the "breaking down connective tissue" to which we most commonly refer in the context of meat cookery.  Fat is, itself, a connective tissue, so to the extent that it melts it is doing some "breaking down of connective tissue."  But this is relatively trivial compared to the collagen-to-gelatin reaction in a braising cut.  As LT/LT sous vide cooking demonstrates, converting collagen to gelatin without melting out most of the fat still results in very tender meat, whereas the opposite is definitely not the case.

On page 131 of the new edition, McGee says:

Fat contributes to the apparent tenderness of meat in three ways: fat cells interrupt and weaken the sheet of connective tissue and the mass of muscle fibers; fat melts when heated rather than drying out and stiffening as the muscle fibers do; and it lubricates the tissue, helping to separate fiber from fiber.

Aren't you specifically referring to a layer of fatty deposit under the skin in those areas, whereas 'prime' would address marbling within the muscles?

My larger point was simply that it's unclear to me that desirable fat characteristics in one part of a carcass necessarily mean desirable fat characteristics in all parts of the carcass. Looking at my own body, I can pretty much guarantee that the marbling of fat in meat taken from my midsection will be far greater than it would be in meat taken from my calf.

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As the proud owner of a connective tissue disease, I can back you up on that. Muscle is even connective tissue. I can tell you about various inflammations in odd places.

Anything that is not itself blood or bone, falls under the general title of connective tissue, including but not limited to marrow.

Fat always helps with flavor. Protein in the form of gelatin is power packed with flavor as well. It would seem a waste of money and time to search out a "prime" brisket for braising. The method is designed to get the best out of old, tough cuts of meat. I would intuitively - and I may be entirely wrong - assume that grade would be irrelavent in this situation. Breed, diet and just plain tastiness would be the target for a great pot roast.

I agree that anything can be made dry with overcooking.

I just wish they would quit trimming the fat so close. Some of us have to consume quite a bit of it to meet our nutritional requirements. There are upsides to certain conditions.

Edited January 8, 2007 by annecros (log)

[Porthos]

It also strikes me that, while I'm not entirely sure what parts of the carcass are judged for the USDA grading, I have the feeling that it doesn't necessarily follow that prime chuck has more fat and better marbling than choice chuck.  This idea is reinforced by the Wikipedia information on beef grading, which says: "The grades are based on two main criteria, the degree of marbling (intramuscular fat) in the beef rib eye and the age of the animal prior to slaughter."  I'm not sure what the quality of the rib eye says about the quality of the chuck, but it's clear to me that there are cases in animals where the distribution of body fat is not even.  Just look at humans: some have lots of fat in the stomach and practically none in the legs, and some have a more or less even distribution of fat.  If you're "grading" humans according to an examination of the lower torso, it seems clear that there can still be wide differences in the amount of fat in, e.g., the lower leg.

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"The quality grade factors, marbling and maturity, used to determine USDA beef quality grades (Prime, Choice, Select, etc.) do not explain all of the variation in beef palatability. However, they are capable of segregating a large dissimilar population of beef into more similar grade classes. " (italics mine)

The Role of USDA’s Beef Grading Program in the Marketing of Beef part of the Agriculture Marketing Administration of the USDA.

United States Standards for Grades of Carcass Beef

A couple of reference sources regarding the intent (1st reference) and methodology of grading (2nd reference).

This kind of reading appeals to the engineer in me. Profered here for anyone who is curious about grading. This is new territory for me and I will read more carefully after work today. Until then my boss would like me to earn my keep.

Porthos Potwatcher

The Unrelenting Carnivore

Edited January 8, 2007 by Porthos (log)

[annecros]

Keep in mind that USDA grading is optional. It does have to be "inspected" by the USDA for wholesomeness, but there is no legal requirement that it be graded. There is much more "prime" beef sold, than butchered, inspected and bonified.

[Fat Guy]

I get local, grass-fed beef shanks/ribs here in town and the quality of the dishes I get out of them is far superior to any supermarket beef I've ever tried.

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Yet, the supermarket beef is probably much fattier. Interesting.

[snowangel]

Given my food budget, I just get my chuck roasts from Costco or the supermarket; the advantage of the supermarket being that the meat guy knows me (I plied him with smoked butt the first week in our new house), and he looks in back for the most well marbled one. One that will ooze collagen. This way, I figure that I can go all out on other ingredients.

[slkinsey]

"The quality grade factors, marbling and maturity, used to determine USDA beef quality grades (Prime, Choice, Select, etc.) do not explain all of the variation in beef palatability. However, they are capable of segregating a large dissimilar population of beef into more similar grade classes. "  (italics mine)

The Role of USDA’s Beef Grading Program in the Marketing of Beef  part of the Agriculture Marketing Administration of the USDA.

That says more or less what I said before: marbling and maturity. And that's all good and well as to the rib and short loin sections of the carcass. However, as far as I can tell, the whole carcass is assigned a USDA grade based upon inspection of the rib section only of the carcass. So, a carcass with a prime rib and short loin may have chuck section that would grade out at select or good versus other chuck sections, and yet this chuck will still be considered "prime."

[Mallet]

I get local, grass-fed beef shanks/ribs here in town and the quality of the dishes I get out of them is far superior to any supermarket beef I've ever tried.

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Yet, the supermarket beef is probably much fattier. Interesting.

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I've found that the grass-fed beef we buy is usually far more flavourful than the supermarket variety, but that the texture is somewhat inferior because it tends to be leaner. I suspect this is not necessarily a problem of grass-fed beef in general because the person we buy from slaughters her cattle ar ~18 months instead of ~24 (I'm told this is where a cow will really put on some fat).

Edited January 8, 2007 by Mallet (log)

[Porthos]

"The quality grade factors, marbling and maturity, used to determine USDA beef quality grades (Prime, Choice, Select, etc.) do not explain all of the variation in beef palatability. However, they are capable of segregating a large dissimilar population of beef into more similar grade classes. "  (italics mine)

The Role of USDA’s Beef Grading Program in the Marketing of Beef  part of the Agriculture Marketing Administration of the USDA.

That says more or less what I said before: marbling and maturity. And that's all good and well as to the rib and short loin sections of the carcass. However, as far as I can tell, the whole carcass is assigned a USDA grade based upon inspection of the rib section only of the carcass. So, a carcass with a prime rib and short loin may have chuck section that would grade out at select or good versus other chuck sections, and yet this chuck will still be considered "prime."

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My sincere apologies. I wasn't at all trying to disagree with you. I just looked up info from the USDA about the grading system and posted the links here if anybody wanted to read up on the specifics of how and why the grading is done; that is what the goal of grading is. It was not my intent to imply that the grading system applied to quality of the whole carcass. Sorry for the confusion.

Porthos Potwatcher

The Unrelenting Carnivore

[russ parsons]

"The quality grade factors, marbling and maturity, used to determine USDA beef quality grades (Prime, Choice, Select, etc.) do not explain all of the variation in beef palatability. However, they are capable of segregating a large dissimilar population of beef into more similar grade classes. "  (italics mine)

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i think the key point here is that marbling determines the official grade, but it is only one indicator of overall quality. despite the aphorism, fat does not equal flavor (though more times than not it is a very good indicator of it). as others have noted, grass-fed beef has a very specific and appealing flavor, though it is leaner. different breeds of cattle have different intensities and types of flavor as well.

another point is that a lot of the fat that is rendered when you're braising an especially fatty piece of beef ends up being skimmed (or should be). you want just enough intramuscular fat to lubricate the muscle strands, but not so much that you wind up having to spend an hour spooning it out of your sauce.

still neither one of those factors completely answers fatguy's initial question about whether it is worthwhile to buy prime meat for braising.

[Stone]

A while back I stopped by Lobells near the holidays and asked how much their brisket was. Upon hearing the price, I asked "for a cut of meat that's going to be slow braised, it is really worth it?" The guy shrugged.

But this raises another question: Is there such thing as a bad piece of brisket? Every once in a while my folks serve a tough brisket. My Dad blames the meat. I blame him. "You didn't cook it long enough." "I cooked it as long as I always do." "Maybe, but that's not enough."

Setting aside the odd case where there is a vein of hard white fat through the brisket (I guess left over from a poorly trimmed point), won't all briskets be delicious if cooked correctly?

[Boris_A]

But what's about aging?

McGee, old edition, p. 98: "Today, most beef is cut up to separate the loin and ribs for brief aging in the cooler, while the less choice chuck and round are shipped to market immediately."

In Austria, there's a long tradition of boiled (or rather simmered) beef. I a book, I found a reference telling that the once most famous beef restaurant of Vienna "Meissl & Schadn" (vanished after WW II) aged it's beef "exactly for two weeks" before boiling.

I always suspected that the usual stiff price competition for the "inferior" cuts used for brasing or boiling doesn't allow for correct aging (think of cooler capacity and water loss).

And I must admit, I have no idea about the aging process of the inferior cuts of prime beef.

[k43]

The method evolved in the EGCI braising class works beautifully for fatty, bony cuts such as short ribs and oxtail. With 1/2" of beef stock in a Le Creuset pot, they come out unctious and wonderfully flavored. In fact, they're too rich to eat unless I refrigerate them overnight, remove the fat from the sauce and pull most of the fat lumps out of the meat.

I've had less luck with boneless cuts like chuck, butt and rump. I got a 4-pound chuck pot roast at Fairway last weekend that had a nice fat cap, but when I unwrapped it I saw almost no intramuscular fat. Even after cooking 4-1/2 hours, when I stuck a kitchen fork in vertically, it lifted the entire piece out of the pot. At 5-1/2 hours it was edible but still firm, and quite dry, though edible and well flavored with plenty of the liquid.

Lobel's prices will surely be astronomical even for chuck, but the meat is almost certain to be well marbled. I'd love to try it, but not when I can get short ribs from the local butcher at an affordable price. Perhaps the compromise would be to get high-choice chuck at Jefferson.