Today, most beef cuts are boneless. Such practice gathers trimmings for large scale sale and eliminates the packaging, storage and shipping of waste (fat & bone). Back in yesteryear ribs, leg bones, the shoulder blade, backbone cross-cuts and the hip bone could be used for determining the carcass region a cut came from. For the most part now, consumers have to rely on understandable labeling or their ability to recognize meat characteristics from different carcass regions so they can successfully prepare beef cuts.
Cuts fabricated from the anterior (front) region of a beef carcass often contain multiple muscles; with muscle bundles running different directions within those cuts. Cutting across muscle grain is a good way to enhance the tenderness of meat cuts, but that practice is not always possible with beef chucks. There’s a lot going on in the front part of beef cattle: a powerful neck for grazing & defense, strong legs for support & locomotion and some turning muscles for changing direction. Due to the multi-tasking nature of this carcass region it contains a lot of moderately thick connective tissue plus has seam-fat between various muscles. Cuts that are close the ground in the live animal, such as shank and brisket, tend to contain the most connective tissue and therefore are hardest to tenderize (solubilize collagen) during cooking. However, the remaining square cut chuck can be very successfully prepared using relatively low heat, moist cookery techniques. Beef carcasses tend to marble first/most toward the front end; this bodes well for retention of moisture and flavor during lengthy chuck roast cooking times. I don’t like to submerge chuck because it increases the washing-out of water soluble meat protein, minerals and vitamins, steaming on a rack in a closed roasting pan works well. Grinding is a very good option for neck meat and chuck trimmings. I grind Choice chuck once through a 3/16 inch plate. On both sides of the shoulder blade there is a fairly large and tender muscle: High quality flat-iron steaks can be cut from the top-blade roast by removing a strip of heavy connective tissue. The under-blade roast yields Denver steaks and stir-fry meat on the tapered edges of the roast. Further, this well marbled roast can either be smoke-cooked like brisket or cured for corned beef. Luckily, briskets have a good bit of soft flavorful fat to help with moisture and flavor retention during the extremely long cook times require to tenderize them. Whole briskets are relatively high priced because there are only 2 of them per carcass and because successfully preparing them has become somewhat of a competitive “sport.” Shank meat can be submerged in water and slow cooked to tenderize it and to produce gelatin for soup stock, but most often it is used sparingly in twice ground beef products.
Starting near the back (posterior) end of the shoulder blade beef cuts are more tender than in the chuck. This is due to these cuts containing fewer muscles, bundles of muscles within a cut running one direction (easily cut across muscle grain) and bovine back muscles are used more for turning than for support and movement (less connective tissue). The loin-eye (longissimus dorsi) muscle runs the length of the animal’s back, from the shoulder blade to the hip bone. Under the backbone (chine bone) and near the front of the hip bone (aitch bone) lies the tenderloin (psoas major & minor). This top (dorsal) “middle meats” carcass region is where the highest quality steaks are cut from. Thin muscles below (ventral) to loin steaks encase the body cavity. Beef fat is too hard and the lean too tough to use for producing salable beef bacon. These thin muscles are normally used in ground beef items (raw or pre-cooked). There are 2 flank (abdominal) muscles per carcass. These steaks are tough (but can easily be sliced thinly across the grain), have a unique flavor and are high priced due to the relatively low supply.
The hind leg region of beef animals is used for support and locomotion and as with the front leg this causes somewhat tougher muscles. However, the tail does not require any where near the complexity of muscles that the neck and head of the animal does. Beef rounds (from the sirloin separation back) contains comparatively large and lean muscles. The relative lack of marbling in round cuts is thought to be due to their distance from the heart. The sirloin-tip (quadriceps) muscle is normally cut in half as the wholesale round is separated from the sirloin. So, even though the name is sirloin-tip, it may well be part of the wholesale beef round. Similar to chuck roasts, sirloin-tips contain a good bit of moderately heavy connective tissue; both make very good pot roasts. Top/inside round is a large, but not too tough muscle that can be cut into London broils or be used to make roast beef. As with the front shank, the hind shank is widely ground. The remaining gooseneck (outside) round consist of the bottom (flat), eye of round and the heel of round. Gooseneck rounds are lean, tough and even out of grain-finished market cattle they are sometimes utilized as 85% lean in ground beef products. Like modern enhanced boneless pork loins, gooseneck rounds are an underutilized cut because it is so hard to successfully prepare. Hopefully someone will come up with a way to use them in higher-end further processed products. Eye of round steaks can look like tenderloin to the untrained eye, but their palatability characteristics are “miles apart.”
Read labels, look for coarse muscle bundles on cross-cut meat surfaces and follow Beef Chart cooking recommendations for the meat you purchase.
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