The Learning Curve in Beef and other Thoughts on Meat
We’re just about through our first steer, Number 27, from Swift Farms and the second one is scheduled for the end of August. What have we learned so far? For one, a single steer weighing 740 pounds butchered provides about a week’s work of ground beef (100 pounds) and four weeks’ worth of steaks and roasts. This is problematic when most of your beef business is in burgers. On occasion, we’ve gone back to Dickson’s Farmstand Meats and the local Amish Market to bolster our supply.
So we started looking at other cuts of the animal and wondered what else we could use besides the chuck. Chuck comes from the front of the animal and when all is said and done, provides about 15% fat into the grind. A bit of fat is helpful in creating a pleasing texture in addition to flavor. Furthermore, it helps keep the burger from falling to pieces while on the grill.
Other parts of the animal are leaner. Roasts from the back end of the animal do not contain quite as much fat but we would rather grind them up for burgers instead of the filet or the prime rib. At the end of the day, we need a few hundred pounds of ground beef per month, not just one hundred in order to make our burger business work. We’ll be sampling and savoring our burgers over the next month to see how the different cuts nuance our burgers.
We’ve also been reminded that grass-fed beef is really really delicious but can get tough when cooked inappropriately. Steaks don’t do well past medium. Braises and roasts take a little bit longer to cook to improve tenderness. As you tuck in, please be reminded that you may need to chew a little bit more than you would with a feedlot-raised animal. The animal got exercise and so shall you.
We’ve also just bought a whole hog and a whole lamb. We’ve ground up almost the entire lamb, except for the chops and a leg, because we feel that at least SOMETIMES, you should have a Shepherd’s Pie with lamb. Up until now, it has been very difficult to get ahold of ground lamb for this purpose. Lamb Shepherd’s Pie will be a dinner special soon.
The pork has already started to make an appearance on our menu in the form of bacon and ham. The other cuts, like braised pig’s feet, smoked hocks, and even a home-made pâté will appear soon.
It’s very rewarding to use the whole animal. It reminds us that it is a local resource to be respected. It exercises our cooking skills, provides a much wider palate for creativity, and more dining choices for the customer. We are happy we made the leap to locally pastured meats.
