"Large Cuts of Meat Trimming" Thread
 

I figure I can't be the only one interested in this topic during quarantine.

In the past 1-2 weeks, as rumors of meat shortages have grown, I've noticed a rather odd shift in the meat available at both Costco and several of our local grocery stores. Plenty of meat is still available, but you have to commit to the entire cut. It's not sliced and packaged into steaks like usual. This seems to be true for both pork and beef.

So I'm thinking of buying an entire beef tenderloin, 8-10 total pounds. It's about $6 per pound, choice grade beef. Online tutorials make it appear simple enough...you get a stack of filet mignons but some ends that you can turn into ground beef. But I'm interested in whether anyone here does this regularly and if there are any additional tips or things to think about when buying a piece of meat like this.

There are also some big cuts of pork.

It's weird to see our entire meat counter like this, as well as 90% of the Costco meat section, just these huge hunks of meat. I guess it's better than an actual shortage...just requires me to do more of the labor at home. (Fortunately, at a better price per pound, assuming the weight of the unconsumed part isn't too much.)

Assuming you have the freezer space, sounds like a good deal.

I bet there are a lot of YouTube videos on how to trim large cuts.

Specifically, a Costco whole tenderloin is UNTRIMMED, and there is about 10-16% waste after your trim it because of the silverskin. I try to buy vacuum sealed ones from the center cut for a greater consistency with portion sizing. Have a good, but shorter blade boning knife too (no more than 7 in.)

They're plenty.
Search "Butchering (insert meat here) cuts" and you will find gold.

$6/lb. is a great price for a whole tenderloin. Where I am, it's a minimum $10/lb, and often more.

You don't have to grind the tenderloin trimmings. I think they're great for sauteed 'steak tips', stroganoff, etc.

Your location says "MCI" -- if you look around, you could find a local-ish farmer who would sell you a half a pig, a quarter of a cow, etc.

I did this a few years ago. Paid roughly $2/pound for the half a hog direct to the farmer, then paid a local mom and pop butcher to process it. All in my cost was probably around $4/pound give or take? It all came back to me labeled, vacuum sealed, and packaged based on my request (eg, packages of four pork chops per packet, specific weights of each package for sausage, etc).

I might do this again soon depending on how things shake out with the supply chain. Right now is potentially especially a good time to do it, the reason that there are meat shortages in the store is processing capacity, not supply. Farmers are going to be looking to offload animals that were supposed to end up at slaughterhouses and processing plants.

If you call directly to the butcher they will surly have ranchers they work with a lot and you can just deal directly with them to bring in the animal/butcher it without one less step.

One warning for anyone thinking of this though, once you've bought locally raised meat and had it locally butchered, you're going to have a really hard time going back to store bought. A store bought XXX cut maybe fine by itself, but cook the same cut up with your local one at the same time and you'll be BLOWN away by the difference in quality.

I always thought the butcher department would slice up big pieces for you at no charge. There used to be a button in the meat department to ring them. Or am I just remembering stuff from 20 years ago?

I was a vegetarian for two years, mostly to see if I could do it and if the benefits were worth the trade-offs.

I am cool with not eating meat [or pork, or poultry] for several months to a year. No need to slaughter and dress my own food.

So far...fresh/frozen fish, veggies and big bags of rice are still plentiful and cheap in our "vortex of retail".
I love carne but...

$6 per pound of filet? Something not right about that.

It's not uncommon right now given that demand from restaurants is down near 100%. I used to find full choice and occasionally prime tenderloins at Fairway for $7-10 per pound right after Christmas and Easter. A few times there were further sales on meat (50% or BOGO) that lowered the price to that level.

Wow!

These days I’m buying ca 2.8 kgs of Argentinian cote de boeuf for the family of six. Lasts at least two large meals.

We order our beef/chicken/pork from a ranch directly. It's fantastic quality and the ranchers are great people. Their chicken is a work of art compared to a factory bird.

They'll do half cows or pigs with some notice as well. I'm looking into getting a quarter hog to try my hand at smoking once we get our move out of NYC done over the weekend.

This is so true. We order a whole lamb each year and have it butchered locally. There is no comparison.

It was Choice beef. Prime would be quite a bit higher.

I ended up buying a 7 pound tenderloin. From that, I'd say I got about 4-5 pounds of what you'd consider a nice filet steak, about a pound and a half of chain muscle that we ground up and put in a pasta sauce, and about a pound of gristle and silverskin. There was a portion of the cut where I was unsure if I correctly separated the chain from the center cut but the steaks all tasted great on the grill.

All of the videos show people cutting super-thick filets. I did about half of them that way and the other half as more of a medallion style. I cut the head and tail areas thinner, mainly.

As it turns out, a couple days ago we went in with a couple other families this week to buy an animal for August processing. The ranch and processor are about an hour from our house. That gives us about 3 months to work our way through our freezer to make room for it. :)

I find no real difference between grades when it comes to the tenderloin. I've had prime, choice, and even some ungraded filets from a farm outside New Orleans many years ago. All the same to me.

Makes it an easy "choice" when they start selling it for peanuts!

Yes, a family tradition for years. We're happy to just needing to travel for 20min to pick-up previously ordered items, vacuum-sealed and ready for the freezer. Not all is frozen, as we normally collect on Thursday, we indulge in lamb BBQ that weekend.

Maybe I'm being controversial, but tenderloin is surely the most boring cut of meat you can buy. It's got about as much flavour as cardboard.

I agree.....wrapping in bacon and serving with bernaise sauce helps immensely .

Although completely ignorant as per the flavour of cardboard, the public demand for tenderloin versus cardboard as dinner ingredient strongly seems to favour the tenderloin. Still, YMMV, and at least your food budget will benefit ;)

Yes, anything additional will probably improve cardboard. Will that be medium rare, Sir? :)

But then you're just eating bacon and bernaise sauce wrapped around a clump of protein. :D

A good steak should be eaten without anything else, with the exception of maybe a bit of mustard.

I was with you until the last word of your sentence.

That's fair. Honestly, for a good steak I rarely have anything on it. If it's $10 steak night at the pub then I'm happy to have it smothered in packet gravy. But that's more a comfort food thing. And that gravy needs to blend seamlessly into the mash. ;)

First you say a good steak should be eaten by itself. Then you bring up mustard, and now mashed potatoes and packet gravy. Why, oh, why?

Ten dollar steak night at the pub is usually the cheapest rump they could find. Not good steak.

also nice with some chimichurri or salsa.

i know that mustard is a nice ingredient with an Italian chimichurri.
as for mash and gravy, that’s always fun with any protein.

even Ruth’s Chris and Fleming’s USA steakhouses serve a steak topped with butter.
I marinate with olive oil, salt, and pepper, then grill it. I’ll serve it with a ramekin with Italian chimichurri sauce but I won’t always use it with mine. I always like it. I’m referring to the strip steaks at $5.99 sale price at Safeway.

You say that like it is a bad thing.
And you lost all meat credibility by putting mustard on a steak. Ugh
Butter, blue cheese, bernaise, chimichuri, red wine sauce....all of these are acceptable steak toppings depending on the cut but mustard? Uh. no.

what’s wrong with mustard? It’s used as an ingredient for chimichurri (italian) and Bernaise and Steak Diane (I think!!). We’re not referring to French’s hot dog mustard - well, I’m thinking Stone ground, Dijon, Senf, and other sharper mustards.
I’ve never been able to want to eat an Australian raw beet sandwich. I love cooked beets and I don’t love raw beets. So maybe in Australia it would be popular for a plain mustard to go with steak. We all know that there are Americans who want ketchup or catsup with their steak as well as people who want their steak or beef well done. I’m so refined that I say nothing negative about how one wants their meat. I learned that in an undergrad (upper division) business management course - never say anything negative about how a business partner (esp a client!!!) wants their food. I’ve just pushed it to the ROW!

Like Brian Kenney would say, EAT THE MEAT!

Mustard on steak??? Plain mustard?

No one would think twice about a beef sandwich with mustard. Why object to the same condiment on a steak? :confused:

I’m very happy you mentioned this!

I enjoy mustard with a COLD roast beef sandwich. When I’ve had HOT roast beef, it’s usually with a different starch (potato / rice) or with a separate gluten roll albeit not as a sandwich. And when HOT, not with mustard.
this is a good Seinfeld question! Well maybe he’s already covered it.

I’ve sometimes had a steak sandwich but NOT with mustard. Usually it’s a warm sandwich.

here’s an idea - sometimes people eat a cold turkey sandwich with mayonaise - I’ve even seen cold roast beef sandwiches with mayonaise. Yet we also don’t see mayo with a hot turkey or roast beef entree.

one thing that goes with almost any sauce in HOT condition - a burger! Yet when one eats a “hamburger steak,” usually they don’t have it with condiments other than ketchup.

We never have had such deep / degenerate / depressing / useless conversations on ft before March 2020. Wow. Go us! We are the champions!!

I don't use mustard on a beef sandwich of any sort, other than a hamburger or cheeseburger.

I’ve never been a fan of mustard on most things. Maybe some spicy deli mustard on a Costco dog, or mixed in sauces, etc. I have to scrape it off burgers if it’s on it.

what about corned beef or pastrami ? Those 2 are perfect mustard vehicles IMO.

Steak and mustard go very well together but not any mustard it has to be English mustard.

That said I much prefer horseradish.

I won't add it to a burger, but if it's on there, I won't scrape it off.
I can deal with it there.

A sharp mustard goes well as a light dip for steak.

I grabbed and broke down a full pork loin for a Father's Day request and my knife was basically rounded afterwards.

Well it's all personal preference, but why bother forking out for an expensive cut of steak if you're going to smother it in other stuff. Especially a cut of meat that has as subtle a flavour as eye filet.

All those other things, chimmichurri, gravy, bernaise etc are fine on the right steak, but again, put them on eye fillet and tell me you can taste the steak.

I've never understood America's obsession with putting blue cheese on absolutely everything, but I think that's a different thread. ;)

I wouldn't put sauces on a flavorful rib eye ...maybe just some grilled onions . But a filet is very light on flavor IMO. Yes, it is extremely tender but a bit bland. I almost never buy filet...but if I do, it needs flavor help. It is too lean--fat=flavor.