The other day I purchased ground beef, it must have been lean because there was hardly any grease to drain, however, it was SOOOO grissly we could'nt eat it!!! It looked really good in the package, bright red and fresh!!!! My question is, what is the best type of ground beef to buy, fat percentage????? I hate grissle and I just want it to be flavorful & juicy, tired of learning the hard way!!! It can be confusing when it comes to buying meats, steaks as well!!!! Purchased steaks that looked really good in the package but end up being tough!! Thanks for any advice in advance!!!

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myangelcorinne :o

Often, the way you cook something affects how tough it is. Try marinating your steaks before you cook them so they get tenderized a bit.

As for ground beef, I go with the regular (I think it's 85% lean). If you are going to drain it anyway, it doesn't matter much! I find the leaner stuff is often too dry for me.

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I never get confused with the kind of steaks I buy. I buy Rib Eye first, because I think they are the best taste. Then New York, then T-bone or Porterhouse.

I don't think I have ever found grissle in ground beef. Maybe I just had it and didn't notice. I'm always careful for the littel chips of bone that you can occationally find. My teeth are very delicate, so it's always a chance that I can do some damage.

I think with ground beef, I usually get what's on sale. Actually, the meat I buy is the marked down stuff (REDUCED FOR SALE). It's usually meat that the expiration date is going out the next day. I find the BEST steaks this way. Sometimes I find Filet Mignon for $5.99 a lb. I buy great Rib Eyes and New Yorks for $3.99 a lb., T-bone and Porterhouse for $4.29 lb. If I don't cook the steaks that night of they next, I freeze them.

Teri

I always seem to mess up, if you listen to DH. He always ends up complaining about any cut of meat I get - so - now it's his job. If he goes shopping with me, he gets to pick out the meat - or I don't get any I'm not that sure of.

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Mary Kay
2009 - 223
Valentines day goal - 214

If I am using it for burgers on the grill, I can get by with the cheap ground beef (either 80 or 85%). If I am using it for chili or something where I cook it on a stove first and have to drain the fat, I will buy the better stuff (90 or 95%).

As far as steaks go, it depends. If it is a sirloin, get it fatty.

Mary Kay-> My wife "likes" me to pick out the meats too.

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261/226/215?
Started Atkins on 6/12/03

Here's some tips on choosing good beef:

The higher up on the animal, the tenderer the meat. So cuts from the back (sirloin, tenderloin, short loin) are the most tender, and are best for grilling. Next is the leg, or rounds. The top round is best, followed by the bottom round. You can grill or roast these cuts (dry heat) with good results. The least tender are the cuts from the front or bottom of the animal, like the chuck, shoulder, brisket and flank. These cuts need moist, slow cooking, like stewing and braising, to be tender.
It's important to look for marbling, which is streaks of fat running through the meat. The more you see, the tenderer and more flavorful the meat will be. The outside fat won't really make any difference in the juiciness of the cooked meat. And the fat should be very white; cuts with yellowish fat are older. Never buy pre-wrapped meat that has a lot of liquid in the plastic tray; it's been frozen and thawed out for sale. And never use commercial meat tenderizer. It makes beef mushy. Marinades work much better and add flavor.
Ground beef from the supermarket is going to have some gristle in it, but if it was that bad, I wouldn't buy it there anymore. They aren't trimming carefully enough. The perfect ratio of meat to fat for burger is 80-20. This gives you enough fat for juicy, flavorful burgers. If you want really good, gristle-free burger, choose a good-looking chuck roast with about 20% fat on it, and ask the supermarket butcher to grind it for you. It's a bit more expensive than the regular ground chuck, but you know exactly what's in it, and most likely won't run into any gristle.
HTH,

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Trina

Vice-President of the Intergalactic Order of Brussels Sprouts Haters

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I've started grinding it myself at home - that way I KNOW what's in it for sure! After the "mad cow" disease stuff, DH and I decided that we wanted to do it ourselves.

I bought a grinder attachment for my KitchenAid some time back so now it's put to good use! I usually buy Chuck or Round at Costco and grind it up, so no gristle in MY ground beef!!

As for steaks, look for ones with small streaks of fat (aka MARBLING) throughout - as the meat cooks, these liquify and make the meat tender and tasty.

Bright red coloration on meat simply means it's been exposed to oxygen. It's not necessarily an indicator of freshness.

Wanna know how I know? In another lifetime and many moons ago - I was an apprentice butcher! LOL!!!

Char

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Charski,
I grind my own burgers, too! I LOVE my Kitchenaid grinder; it works great. I have most of the little attachment thingys that go with it, and use them all (except for the pasta attachment, these days).
Do you have the sausage extruder? Homemade sausage is awesome; I made some chicken, basil, romano cheese and sundried tomato sausage last summer that turned out really good. I'll have to make some more this year for the grill.
You were gonna be a butcher? How cool!!

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Trina

Vice-President of the Intergalactic Order of Brussels Sprouts Haters

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I find that different stores have better quality free ground beef. The price doesn't seem to be a defining factor, really. My local Albertson's and Von's have the lousiest ground beef. My local Stater Brothers has excellent, very noticeably better ground beef, generally around the same price.

I think all three are owned by the same parent company, so it makes you wonder what the difference is. Maybe it's the store butcher and the prerogative he has in choosing the cuts he grinds. Perhaps another Stater Brothers would be worse (?)

I always buy the cheapest ground beef, the 85%. This is a long-term WOE, and I'm poor, so I try to be smart and cheap about how I buy my food. The price of food has become outrageous lately, here in Southern California.

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When i did ww years ago, I was taugt that the leanest cuts of meat were round, leg and loin.... So for years now I usually only buy grn round or grn sirloin (and only when it is on sale for under $2 a lb.) I stock up and use it.
I have however been buying grn beef from Costco lately, it is good, but I have found that it does have some grissel in it occassionally..... Steaks, I usually buy a large sirloin roast at costco and cut in to four roasts, then when we get it out we decide what we want to do with it, either make steaks out of it, roast it make carne guisada (mexican stew), regular stew, or chili....
It is usually tasty, tender and can be cooked a million different ways.

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carolyn in texas
started 8/11/03 327/268/177
5/20/08/ - 348
onward thru the fog

Great thread. I feel like an idiot for asking this, but what is grissle?

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Started Atkins on 9/20/03
235-->190; 150 goal

Okay, I'm glad someone finally asked, because I wondered the same thing....what is this grissle we are talking about?

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Shannon

Atkins started: April 19, 2004
147/133/125

Gristle is the cartilage found in meats. It's tough and chewy. It's like Willy Wonka's famous ever-lasting gobstopper. You can chew it and chew it and chew it, and it never goes away.

It's not the fat marbled through meat. It's cartilage -- gristle.

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April

The face of a child can say a lot -- especially the mouth part of the face.

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LOL !!! April!! What a great description!! I wouldn't have thought of how to describe it, but this is exactly it! ever-lasting gobstopper....hahahahahaha

We get a beef each year from a farmer we know, and get a great price, but we have to help with the cutting up of it. And bring it all home to package for the freezer. The trick with hamburger is not to make it TOO lean, especially what you want to make jes' plain burgers with. We trim very well, but use the suet for the fat we want, not the tallow. When we buy hamburg for burgers, I get 85% when I can, 80% when I can't. Never get 75% except for meatballs.

clw56
one day at a time

Gristle to me is dog food. It's what my dog gets when I can't chew it.
I don't think he chews anything, anytime. it just slides down.

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Mary Kay
2009 - 223
Valentines day goal - 214