Bones_ Recipes, History, and Lore - Jennifer McLagan [2]
Veal comes from young beef calves fed a special diet. While veal cuts are similar but smaller and more manageable than beef cuts, veal can’t be substituted in all beef recipes. Veal lacks the fat and marbling of beef, which comes with age, so it needs careful handling, especially when grilling or roasting, to prevent the meat from drying out. Here is where bones come in, by keeping the meat juicy. Veal’s youth makes it more suitable to braising, because its mild meat easily absorbs flavors.
Beef and especially veal bones are loaded with collagen, a protein that dissolves into gelatin when cooked, thickening and enriching sauces, and veal bones make rich full-bodied stocks. The richest source of this transforming collagen is calves’ feet; just one added to stock will immensely improve its flavor and body.
Both veal and beef bones hold a hidden treasure, the marrow. All animal bones contain marrow, but the shank bones of beef and veal hold an especially high proportion of marrow and are the most prized. Marrow bones are often added to enrich stews, but these same bones can be either roasted or poached and eaten simply for the marrow they contain. These bones and their marrow also have some unexpected uses (see Bonelogue, page 239).
Don’t buy your beef and veal just anywhere. A good butcher, or a local small producer, can ensure the provenance of your meat and guarantee that your veal is humanely raised. The tenderness of beef cuts can’t be judged by simply looking at them: a good butcher carefully ages his meat to ensure its flavor and tenderness. With these large animals, knowing where the bones and the meat that surrounds them are found will dictate how they are cooked, so it is helpful to familiarize yourself with their skeletal structure.
What I love about these braised items is that they’re not just sauté-and-serve. The process behind them requires more thought on the part of the cook, and technique to create something more that what you started with. A filet mignon is a filet mignon—there’s little difference between the raw meat and the cooked meat. But short ribs, veal breast—they become completely different entities after they’re cooked. They transcend themselves, developing a full, complex, satisfying aroma.
—THOMAS KELLER.
The French Laundry Cookbook
The Front End
When beef and veal are butchered, the shank is removed from the front leg (see “The Extremities”). The remaining arm and shoulder are called the chuck or the blade. This section provides flavorful, well-marbled cuts made up of several muscles and connective tissue. Blade roasts and cross rib roasts come from here, as do short ribs. Whole or cut into steaks, they are ideal for pot-roasting and braising.
Veal yields similar but smaller cuts. Bone-in veal shoulder roasts, also called blade or arm roasts, are full of collagen and produce rich sauces when pot-roasted or braised.
The Middle
The muscles in this part of the animal do the least physical work, so the meat is very tender. For both beef and veal, the midsection is divided into two parts, the rib and the loin.
The rib section is where the classic beef roast comes from, often called a standing rib roast because it comes with its own built-in roasting rack. A whole rib roast has up to eight ribs, but these are more often divided into two-, three-, or four-rib roasts. If you are buying one of these smaller roasts, ask your butcher to cut it from the loin end, where the meat is a single muscle and more tender, rather than the shoulder end. The same applies when buying bone-in rib steaks.
To T-bone is to hit from the side, often used when describing a car accident.
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