Choosing a Perfect Steak - Know Your Steak Cuts

Chefs are taught a lot about steak cooking, but you can still visit a restaurant and have a shocking experience.

At home, the overall game of serving a consistently tender and tasty steak gets even harder.

I'll follow with an article on cooking an ideal steak, however before we get to that, I'll address probably the most critical factor of choosing the right cut.

Here are some tips on selecting the right steak. Choosing the grade of meat will observe in a future article.

Choose a great cut

Steak varies a lot in quality.

Firstly you need to select the right cut for your needs, budget and appetite. Here is a quick set of beef cuts that we can that we can definitely classify as 'steak' as well as some common other names.  

Tenderloin (fillet steak, tournedos, eye fillet)

This is actually the 'premium' cut and probably the most tender with minimal fat.

A good quality grain fed or Wagyu tenderloin could have many fat marbling through the meat, but this cut should be trimmed of all sinew and will have no fat externally. This is the priciest cut and probably the most tender, but Rib steaks have more flavour.

Tenderloins are usually smaller steaks aswell. Probably the smallest of all cuts.

Restaurant portions average 180-250g and it's really boneless and fat free.

A double cut from the top of the tenderloin is named a Chateaubriand..

Seared Tenderloin could be baked in puff pastry, either whole or in individual portions, with mushroom duxelles or pate.  beef gyukatsu  is called "Beef Wellington."

Rib Eye, Scotch fillet and Prime Rib

Rib steaks are really flavoursome and may be very tender.

The rib includes a large piece of moist fat running through the center. This is normal. Leave it there as it provides meat flavour and keeps it moist.

A rib eye is a fillet of rib - cut off the bone. That is also called Scotch fillet or 'cube roll'

The Prime rib or "O.P. Rib" is a rib-eye with the bone still on it. Such as a huge lamb cutlet, but from beef instead.

Cooking on the bone always gives a lot more flavour, but it does take a little longer to cook.