Selecting a Perfect Steak - Know Your Steak Cuts

Chefs are taught a whole lot about steak cooking, but one can still go to a restaurant and also have a shocking experience.

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

I'll follow having an article on cooking the perfect steak, however before we get to that, I'll address the most critical factor of deciding on the best cut.

Here are some tips about choosing the right steak. Choosing  beef cutlet  of meat will follow in a future article.

Choose a great cut

Steak varies a lot in quality.

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

Tenderloin (fillet steak, tournedos, eye fillet)

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

A good quality grain fed or Wagyu tenderloin could have many fat marbling through the meat, but this cut ought to be trimmed of most sinew and will have no fat on the outside. This is the most expensive cut and the most tender, but Rib steaks have significantly more flavour.

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

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

A double cut from the head of the tenderloin is called a Chateaubriand..

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

Rib Eye, Scotch fillet and Prime Rib

Rib steaks are extremely 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 really a fillet of rib - take 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 onto it. Just like a huge lamb cutlet, but from beef instead.

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