So What Do You Really Know About Choosing the Right Steak? By KC Kudra At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

If you want to end up eating a great steak, there is no other way to do it than by starting with one that is already great. Unfortunately, it can be rather difficult to determine whether or not a steak at the market is of high quality. There are plenty to choose from, but if you do not know what you are looking for, finding the best one will be pretty tricky. Here are a few things to look for when you go steak shopping that will help you get a better result.

Step one is paying attention to what grade the meat is. Generally, grading is done by a third party organization, or an agency like the USDA, and is determined by how old the animal is and how well marbled the fat is. The carcass is graded on its own, so there is a certain amount of variation between the cuts when you get them. Major US grades are prime, choice, and select, among consumers, with prime being the highest quality and select the lowest quality.

Other grades exist, but they are sold mostly to commercial users. It can be pretty hard to find prime beef, so most of us will be eating choice steaks. Try some choice and some select steaks and see if you can taste the difference between the two grades.

Marbling is a factor traditionally used to determine the quality of a steak. Leaner meat will have little fat and be more tender, but much less flavorful. Streaks of fat generally produce steaks that have more taste to them. However, many people are discovering that other factors influence taste as much or more than marbling. For instance, raising the cattle on grass instead of grain, and finishing them on grass alone, or a mixture of grass and grain seems to result in a steak with more taste, even though it has less attractive marbling. You may have to try a few different kinds to discover what the best option is.

There are multiple different cuts of meat out there, and some of them make better steaks than others. There are three main sections for steak - the rib, short loin, and tenderloin. They are going to cook up differently, depending on what area of the animal they come from. The rib, for instance, is the least tender, and you will need to cook it longer and with more attention to tenderizing than you would when deciding how to cook a New York strip steak.

The short loin produces familiar high quality steaks, including T-bone, Porterhouse, top loin, and tenderloin. Sirloin is responsible for classic sirloning steaks and the top sirloin. You may also see round, chuck, and flank meat described as steak, but you will probably want to cook them as stew, not as a steak, due to their toughness. Pick the best steak to begin with, then find a method of cooking that suits. In the end, you will be much happier with the results you get. No marinade, no matter how good, will fix a bad steak, but a good one will make a great steak the best one possible.

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