Buy Beef to Roast
The success of a roast beef dinner hinges largely on the type and quality of the beef itself. If you don't start out with the right kind of beef, your roast can turn out tough, chewy, or tasteless. Not all cuts of beef are suitable for roasting, which is a method of cooking meat, uncovered, in an oven with little or no moisture. To save time, know which cuts of meat are appropriate for roasting before heading to the butcher's.
Steps
- Choose the cut of beef.
- Identifying the best cuts of meat for roasting is integral to a successful roasting. Roasts that have connective tissue or little marbling don't generally roast well. Look for cuts of beef that come from the rib, short loin or sirloin section of the steer. These parts of the animal are found between the front and hind legs along the top portion of the animal. Cuts of roast from these areas are more tender and flavorful than other cuts and tend to roast well.
- Rib, top sirloin, tri-tip roasts and the tenderloin all make excellent roast choices. Beef tenderloin comes from directly under the spine and so is the least worked muscle on the animal's body, resulting in the tenderest beef. Most people choose this cut of beef over any other but it pales in flavor compared to a rib roast.
- Choose conventional, natural or organic beef.
- More beef choices are available to consumers in terms of how the cattle were raised. If labeled "natural" there can be no artificial ingredients in the beef and it must be minimally processed. "Organic" beef comes from cattle that has been raised as per government organic certification standards. Organic cattle must have been raised without hormones or antibiotics and must have been fed a 100 percent organic diet. Conventional supermarket beef is neither labeled as organic or natural and comes from mass-raised cattle, which may have been injected with hormones and antibiotics.
- Choose the grade of beef.
- In the United States there are 3 grades of beef available to consumers; prime, choice and select. Beef is inspected and labeled accordingly depending on the amount of marbling in each cut. Only about 3 percent of beef is labeled as "prime," 57 percent is labeled as "choice" and the rest is labeled as "select." "Select" is what is most commonly found in supermarkets; the higher the grade of beef, the higher the price.
- Select the size of roast.
- Roasts can come in a variety of sizes. You want to select the roast size that will produce your required number of servings. A good rule of thumb is boneless roasts will yield 2 6 oz. (170 g) servings per 1 lb. (450 g) of cooked meat. A bone-in roast will yield between 1 and 1 1/2 6 oz (170 g) servings per 1 lb. (450 g) of cooked roast, so select your roast size accordingly.
- Purchase the roast.
- Once you've determined which cut of meat you want, whether it is natural, organic or standard, the grade of meat and the size of the roast then you're ready to purchase it and take it home to roast.
