Cooking 101: Steak

How often does this happen to you? You go to pick up a steak at the supermarket and you see Strip, Porterhouse, Sirloin, Skirt, Flank, Chuck Roast, Top Round, Bottom Round, Ribs, Short Ribs, Loin on and on. What do you pick? How do you cook it?

Here's a diagram where the cuts of beef come from on a cow.

Basically, the farther the cut of meat is from the cow's head or hoof, the more tender it will be. This is because the muscles closer to those areas do the most work and thus build up the most connective tissue making for a tougher piece of meat.

Connective tissue in the muscle, called collagen, will break down and turn into gelatin at 160°F and continue to break down through 180°F. When the collagen has all turned to gelatin, that's when you get that great bite of melt-in-your-mouth, fall-off-the-bone meaty goodness.

So why can't we just cook every piece of beef to 160° and enjoy the succulence? Well, for a rare steak, you want it to only reach 120°-130°F. Well done is 150°-160°F. Most people enjoy a steak somewhere in between. You start losing moisture once you breach 130°F. The key is to cook those tougher cuts low and slow in some sort of liquid, like the braising method, so you can achieve optimum collagen to gelatin exchange without losing it's juiciness.

For a go-to cut of meat to pan sear or grill up, go with a Rib Eye. It has a good amount of marbling which will melt while cooking thus giving you a tender, juicy steak to enjoy.

Here is another view of cuts of beef with their optimal cooking method.