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We've been selling skirts,flanks,tri-tips for years. We also sell flat iron steaks and the occasional hanger steak. The flavor you would notice from grinding some of these cuts,in particular the skirt would be a very rich earthy taste. This is due to the fact that the diaphragm muscle(known as the outer skirt steak) is one of the most exercised tissues of the animal and combined with a generous amount of intramuscular fat. One of the few cuts that retain most of it's flavor minced as well as sliced after grilling. Only the texture(obviously) would lend a different toothiness. IMHO of course.

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A well done steak is always RARE

Again, I should say that the hamburger is excellent, very lean and quite dry (in a good way; it browns before it steams but still offers juicy meat) While I love arrachera, it's nice to have plenty of meat for chili, meatloaf and hamburgers; I'm not really complaining.

The only bit I'm really sad about is the marrow bones...

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No guts, no glory.
http://www.chicagonow.com/quips-travails-braised-oxtails
http://quipstravailsandbraisedoxtails.blogspot.com/

Great job. Looks far more appealing than beef heart would normally strike me.

Your pedantic indexer comments, however, that the next update of the recipe index will list it under "shepherd's" pie (cottage pie), beef heart. Real shepherd's pie is made from lamb or mutton.

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LAZ
Dining Chicago
Index to LTHForum Recipes, 2004-2008

I've made the correction at home myself, LAZ - the original recipe is titled shepherd's pie, but I also insist that beef-and-potato pies are "cottage pie." The 'spouse, who ate the KY ground-beef version as a kid, insists that all potato-topped meat pies are "shepherd's pie," which makes no sense.

However, I made the damn thing, so - Cottage pie it is! Index away!

Ask me a riddle and I reply Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie....

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No guts, no glory.
http://www.chicagonow.com/quips-travails-braised-oxtails
http://quipstravailsandbraisedoxtails.blogspot.com/

LOL. Very apt reference.

I hadn't thought about Cottleston pe in years, but your post sent me scurrying to see if it was a real dish or if Milne just made it up.

According to comments here, it's ham quiche, but since I couldn't find any non-Pooh references to Cottleston pie or even to a place called Cottleston, I suspect that's a retrofit.

Anyway, there's a nice Muppet performance here.

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LAZ
Dining Chicago
Index to LTHForum Recipes, 2004-2008

Great minds! I was just planning on doing a websearch for that, myself...

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No guts, no glory.
http://www.chicagonow.com/quips-travails-braised-oxtails
http://quipstravailsandbraisedoxtails.blogspot.com/

Just looking through my photos, and I realized I'm a bit behind on this thread. So, the latest two experiments were these, both using "cube steak" a quick Ragu:



This was simple enough, just cut it up and seared it with EVOO, onions and garlic, covered with red wine and a can of tomatoes with a little dried basil, rosemary and oregano, let it simmer until the (already-tenderized) meat was tender and fell apart. Delicious.

Next was just a plain seared cube steak with a cream gravy:



Again, simply seasoned well with mixed herbs, pepper, salt and garlic powder and seared in a pan; I added some EVOO, made a roux with this and the fond, and poured in milk. It was pretty good.

The "cube steak" wasn't defined further than that - it had the lumpy appearance you expect from this type of processing, but nothing that told me where it came from on the cow. The tenderizing worked - but the meat itself didn't have a lot of flavor, making it work well with these flavorful applications. This should also have been Country Fried steak, but since that's already in my repertoire, I thought I'd play around a little.

_________________
No guts, no glory.
http://www.chicagonow.com/quips-travails-braised-oxtails
http://quipstravailsandbraisedoxtails.blogspot.com/

A couple nights ago we had steak and mushroom pie:


As I was too tired to make a pastry crust, and sent the 'spouse out for extra mushrooms and pastry - he brought back phyllo, which made an interesting, if nontraditional, topper


I do have to admit, we're getting a bit tired of the braising cuts at this point. Most of it comes out tasting good, but pretty much the same. I still have chuck steaks to get through; I'm thinking the next one is going into chili.

_________________
No guts, no glory.
http://www.chicagonow.com/quips-travails-braised-oxtails
http://quipstravailsandbraisedoxtails.blogspot.com/

Tenderized well and sliced against the grain, chuck steak makes a flavorful grilling cut. Try it with a marinade.

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LAZ
Dining Chicago
Index to LTHForum Recipes, 2004-2008

Back in grad school daze all we ever could afford to grill was chuck steak. Cut fairly thin (think French steak+frite size), sizzled, and I mean *sizzled* on a waaay-hot fire, for only a matter of a minute+ a side, and, as LAZ suggests, cut against the grain, chuck is awfully tasty. A bit chewy, sure, but really tasty.

Stir-fries well, too.

Geo

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Sooo, you like wine and are looking for something good to read? Maybe *this* will do the trick!

Just realizing I've been neglecting this thread, though we've been eating cow like crazy: meatloaf, hamburgers, CFS, and I did also use the chuck meat for fairly ordinary fajitas, in which it was excellent, as usual. Before our recent camping trip, I made Cornish Pasties from this recipe, but using the Masa de Cerveza I'd discovered earlier this summer. They are a terrific food to carry on a long journey: a whole meal in one, and to top it off they freeze well. We usually freeze these along with a couple empanadas of various flavors for variety and take them fishing, as they're designed to be eaten with dirty hands. I will say that you need to salt and pepper the filling very well, and that if you use chuck, it should be nicely fatty.



Interestingly, much as we've enjoyed all the winter meats and "cheap cuts," we had a t-bone the other day and found it to be kind of grainy in texture and somewhat lacking in flavor. I hope this was something in the cooking process, as we've got a bit more of that to go.

_________________
No guts, no glory.
http://www.chicagonow.com/quips-travails-braised-oxtails
http://quipstravailsandbraisedoxtails.blogspot.com/

For some reason, the T-Bone steaks we just recently tried were fabulous, the filet meltingly tender, the rib side succulent. I don't know what was going on with the other meat, maybe freezer burn or some processing error. Of course, I don't have photos of those (hell, it's steak - what could I possibly say about that photographically that Ronnie or GWiv haven't said twice as well) so here is my latest culinary creation - sliders.

These were made with the ground beef, some grated onion and not much else, cooked quickly over caramelized onions and served on homemade buttermilk biscuits with pickle slices (that's a dessert plate, to give you an idea of scale.) They were terrific. Leftovers froze nicely, and heat up equally well. In the background is a truly fantastic quartered and sliced pineapple tomato, the only one thus far this year.

_________________
No guts, no glory.
http://www.chicagonow.com/quips-travails-braised-oxtails
http://quipstravailsandbraisedoxtails.blogspot.com/

Looks delicious Mhays!

And of course I just *love* your sig line! I'll have to read it out to my Aristotle & Plato students on Monday. Reminds one of the Bruces' Philosophers' Song.

Much of that Cow left in the freezer by now? Seems to me it should be almost gone. Going to do it again??

Geo

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Sooo, you like wine and are looking for something good to read? Maybe *this* will do the trick!

I had completely forgotten (of course, as you probably surmised, it's an homage to my folks, who can quote both on any subject at the drop of a hat - causing me severe chapeuxophobia. IIRC, Dad was as fond of that rhyme as he is of cracks about Xantippe)

We have a bit of cow left, but think we'll get through it in time for the next one, come November or so - my main worry right now is a largeish Sirloin Tip Roast; it's probably about 5# and I have no idea what to do with it; I don't know if I should treat it like Prime meat or like Select - the meat isn't terribly fatty. We'll also need to figure out who's going to help us eat it, as that's a lot of meat for one big chunk. As far as other bits that worried me, thanks to Bridgestone's Leverpastej, the liver was either eaten at the picnic, or is stowed safely in the freezer waiting to be baked off for company; I have a feeling it will disappear quickly now - and most of the Chuck has been used up in fajitas and the like.

Madcow was kind enough to respond to my PM about how to get the most out of the next one, and I forwarded his suggestions to my cow-acquisitions people. We'll see if I get marrow bones, suet and kidneys next year!

_________________
No guts, no glory.
http://www.chicagonow.com/quips-travails-braised-oxtails
http://quipstravailsandbraisedoxtails.blogspot.com/

So, Valentine's Day rolled around and I had that gut feeling again . As the heart suffered a premature defrost, we were left with kidneys. So, Steak and Kidney Pie it was!

I started with two beef kidneys, and removed, chopped, and rendered the big glob of attached fat. Then I cubed up the kidneys along with a nice round steak.



The kidneys were quickly seared in a dutch oven in some fat from my drippings can. They were removed, and followed by the steak cubes, in two batches, which had been well-dusted with flour. After the steak had seared, (and a few delicious kidney bits were sacrificed to the cook) everything was returned to the pot, along with 1 large diced red onion, and 2 cartons of quartered mushrooms (I used a mixture of white button and crimini.)





Everything was tossed around a bit to make it happy, and then I added a bottle of Bass Ale and enough Chicken stock to cover. Salt, pepper, two bay leaves, a large sprig of thyme, and a jiggle or two of Worchestershire, and it was covered and left to simmer for an hour.

In the meantime, I'd placed the rendered fat in the freezer and made up a quick piecrust with the fat, aided by mixed drippings from my can on the stove. After adding a slog or two of sherry, the stew was plated into a casserole dish, crust tossed on top, brushed with a bit of cream, and baked in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes.





A dee-licious dinner, we couldn't stop soaking up the gravy with my just-baked rye bread that happened to go perfectly (I didn't have caraway seeds and had subbed fennel - a perfect complement to the offal-y goodness) My one regret: I didn't salt the piecrust, assuming the bacon grease would make it too salty. Other than that, it was a delicious stew and I'll definitely do it again if I have the...well, guts.

Happy Valentine's Day, from the bottom of my kidneys!

_________________
No guts, no glory.
http://www.chicagonow.com/quips-travails-braised-oxtails
http://quipstravailsandbraisedoxtails.blogspot.com/

For reference:

2 Beef Kidneys, fat removed, cubed
1 Round Steak, cubed and dusted with flour
2 bay leaves
1 large sprig thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
1 bottle Bass Ale
Chicken Stock
Worchestershire Sauce
Sherry

1 cup flour
1/3 cup frozen drippings
2 1/2 tbsp Bass Ale
(salt to taste)

_________________
No guts, no glory.
http://www.chicagonow.com/quips-travails-braised-oxtails
http://quipstravailsandbraisedoxtails.blogspot.com/

Your steak 'n kidlies Mhays certainly gives new, bold meaning to your "No guts, no glory" sig! Well done! Looks just great!

Geo

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Sooo, you like wine and are looking for something good to read? Maybe *this* will do the trick!

Thanks. I (meaning convincing my wife) have been wanting to do this with our cow. This helps a lot!

My only experience cooking kidneys, lamb kidneys, I way under-cooked them.

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Think Yiddish, Dress British - Advice of Evil Ronnie to me.

The Local Beet's very big list of 2013 Farmer's Markets

Thanks, guys!

VI, I'll be interested to hear your take on this one. In this prep the long cooking makes for a delightful sauce, but if I were eating kidneys on their own, I'd prefer them just after the hard sear in the beginning, (if they were hamburger, I'd have considered them "medium") a little bit al dente. Slow-cooked, while they don't have that grainy texture liver gets, the end product is similar to giblets in giblet gravy.

It did surprise me that they held up during the long cooking - but if you're not a fan of giblet gravy (which we are,) this may not be for you. Sparky (who eats Leverpastej) picked them out, though he loved the rest of it, and had two extra servings of gravy.

_________________
No guts, no glory.
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http://quipstravailsandbraisedoxtails.blogspot.com/

Unfortunately, Bossy III was one of those cows who comes without giblets. Fortunately, though, for our now-annual Valentine's Day tradition, we had plenty of liver left from Bossy II which needed to be eaten, so I decided that it would be our meal tonight (Hubby worked Sunday, so we postponed until today.)

I'm still not keen on the liveriness of beef liver, so I did a bit of googling about, and found this post on the French Laundry at Home blog, which I decided to use as my starting point. I had other ideas about what to do, but I began by sweating my aromatics in a large pot and then adding my first cheat, a packaged glace du veau I found at whole foods, then covering them with wine (instead of the wine vinegar suggested in the recipe)



I added about 2 cups of water and maybe a cup of chicken stock, and the fresh herbs and let it cook slowly for about an hour until it was thick and luscious.



This was strained off and set aside. I then cut up a large leek and a large shallot and sweated them, allowing them to color a bit as they became tender. They were added to the sauce in place of the onion confit in the recipe. The liver had been soaking in cream overnight - a process which did greatly reduce the ironiness and made it much more like calf's liver. I rinsed it off, dusted it with flour and sea salt, and sauteed it in a good amount of olive oil.

I decided to make heart-shaped beet chips as an accompaniment, so I cut beets with a mandolin (they should have been a bit thinner,) coated them with olive oil, sprinkled them with salt and garlic powder and placed them on a parchment-lined cookie sheet in a 350 degree oven until they started to curl at the edges and smell good.


For a starter, I made cookie-cutter shapes of fried Queso Para Freir


Dinner turned out to be delicious - the liver tasted fresh and delicious, and the rich sauce really set it off. Hubby fortunately quite enjoys my sense of humor, and appreciated the finishing touches on the meal:



(BTW - I don't tend to be a fan of astringent wines, but this Chianti was not only fairly inexpensive, but quite nice. Good match for such a rich dish.)

To finish, I took a stab at this recipe, using an excellent frozen blackberry puree I got at a Mexican market. but something went wrong converting the vanilla sponge cake to US measurements. It required a steak knife to navigate. Fortunately, I have some tricks up my sleeve, and slid the mousse off the bad cake and onto the good with only minor mishap.

_________________
No guts, no glory.
http://www.chicagonow.com/quips-travails-braised-oxtails
http://quipstravailsandbraisedoxtails.blogspot.com/