This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 6:33pm and is filed under Local, Media and information, Meat, Agriculture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
The Washington Post recently ran a great article on Affordable Summer Grilling. (thanks Beef Daily Blog!)
You can grill great on a budget by using some of the lower-priced cuts such as such as flank, skirt, Texas-style boneless ribs (chuck ribs), Seven (chuck) steaks and sirloin steak. Part of the secret to getting top quality out of value cuts is marinating. Another is grilling properly: Cook hot and hard for 2-3 minutes, then back the heat off and cook a bit slower to the desired doneness. Tougher steaks should be grilled only to medium rare–never medium-well or beyond by this method. If you like your meat past medium-rare, then I recommend you braise (cook slowly in liquid) first until tender, then grill for the final flavor.
If you are able to buy your meat directly from the producer, you have some extra advantages in selecting value cuts that cook like more expensive ones. In the case of our own Wild Type Ranch beef, we DNA test and select for tenderness, and also harvest each beef individually at the right blend of marbling and backfat. Our sirloins, for instance, stack up favorably against commodity-grade (i.e.typical grocery store) ribeyes on tenderness and surpass them for flavor.
Because I know the identity of the steer from which each steak I sell comes (and we’ve eaten a steak from each one before we sell any), I am also able to give my customers cooking tips specific to the day’s purchase. We’ve got some beeves from which even our stew beef cubes are suitable for kabobs!
Fire up the grill, visit your Farmer’s Market and enjoy some great eating!
June 12th, 2009 at 3:48pm
Thanks for the great tips. Grilling is one reason I love summer, it is so healthy and easy and I end up eating more protein and veggies.
jen
http://www.bodaweightloss.com/blog