All you wanted to know about Beef

Is beef an unnatural or industrial product?

Beef in your supermarket has gone industrial. Before factory farming took hold in the 1960s, cattle were raised on family farms or ranches around the country.

The process was elemental. Young calves were born in the spring and spent their first months suckling milk and grazing on grass.When they were weaned, they were turned out onto pastures. Some cattle were given a moderate amount of grain to enhance marbling (the fat interlaced in the muscle). The calves grew to maturity at a natural pace, reaching market weight at two to three years of age.After the animals were slaughtered, the carcasses were kept cool for a couple weeks to enhance flavour and tenderness, a traditional process called dry aging. The meat was then shipped in large cuts to meat markets.

The local butcher divided it into individual cuts upon request and wrapped it in white paper and string.

This meat was free of antibiotics, added hormones, feed additives, flavour enhancers, age-delaying gases and salt-water solutions. Mad cow disease did not exist. People dined on rare steaks and steak tartare with little fear.Today’s industrialized process brings cattle to slaughter weight in just one or two years. But it reduces the nutritional value of the meat, stresses the animals, increases the risk of bacterial contamination, pollutes the environment and exposes consumers to a long list of unwanted chemicals.

Why does grain-feeding cause health problems? Cattle, sheep and other grazing animals have a specialized stomach chamber called a “rumen.” The rumen is designed to convert fibrous plants such as grasses into a nutritious, easily digested meal. Replace the grass with grain and the rumen becomes too acidic.

Favorite Beef BBQ Meat Cuts

When grilling beef, the cuts that make the best BBQ meat are not necessarily the most tender portions, such as fillet. Meat on the bone, such as rib eye, porterhouse steaks, and classic T-bone has the most flavour.

Short rib is also full of flavour, but can be a bit tough. Other worthwhile cuts include sirloin and rump.Buy your meat a few days before you plan to use it and ask your butcher to vacuum seal it. Storing it in the fridge for a couple of days will help to age it and make it more tender after its cooked. Better still, if you have a good butcher, asking if the meat has been hung, it should hang for its least three weeks (24-30 days).

Wickedfood Cooking School, in conjunction with one of Johannesburg’s leading butchers Caroline McCann from Braeside Butchery ran a very successful, indepth, hands-on demonstration in choosing and preparing beef for a variety of dishes. We also did a taste comparison of grain-fed versus grass-fed beef. Everyone agreed that grass-fed beef has a far better flavor and structure. Students learned the secrets of cooking a number of classic mouthwatering beef dishes including:

•    Preparing raw beef for classic carpaccio and steak tartare;
•    How to braai and roasting various cuts;
•    A delicious quick beef Thai curry, and Italian short rib braise;
•    And how to make the perfect Béarnaise sauce.

Wickedfood Cooking School

Sunninghill – (011) 234-3252 sunninghill@wickedfood.co.za

Wickedfood® Cooking school runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built cooking studios. Classes are run in the mornings and evenings 7 days a week (subject to a minimum of 12 people). The venue is also popular for corporate events and private functions – team building cooking classes, birthdays, kitchen teas, and dinner parties with a difference.

Our classes are hands-on, where every person gets to participate in the preparation of the dishes. They are also a lot of fun where you not only learn new skills, but get to meet people with similar interests. For corporate groups and teambuilding cooking classes these classes are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.

Tags: Beef, cooking classes, Wickedfood Cooking School

This entry was posted on Monday, February 23rd, 2009 at 2:15 pm and is filed under Classes, Individual classes. 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.

5 Responses to “All you wanted to know about Beef”

Steak Tartare | Wickedfood Says:
May 5th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
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