We all love a good T-bone, spare ribs, tenderloin, and the ever famous filet mignon., but there are dozens of other meat cuts that just might surprise you with their rich, meaty flavors and slide off the bone tenderness. And, a lot of these cuts are cheap, too! 

                                                                                                          Lesser Known Meat Cuts That You Must Try

If you are looking to experiment and try out various meat cuts until you find what suits you best, here is a guide on some of the lesser known meat cuts that you definitely must try. Whether you are looking for amazing flavors, or more affordable alternatives to expensive cuts, we’ve got your back.

Beef Cuts

• Denver steak/ Underblade roast- the tender rib meat from the cattle’s shoulder is deeply flavorful and considerably cheap. It can be cooked whole or as individual steaks, and are great for grilling, smoking, or even par-freezing.
• Chuck flat- right beside the Denver is the chuck flat, which is just as tender but much less fatty. It works as a wonderful and more sustainable substitute for the more popular flank steak. There’s little difference in the flavor and texture, but a lot in terms of price.
• Flap meat/ Vacio steak/ Bavette- this underrated cut is an extremely flavorful and tender (but mildly chewy) piece of meat found in between the loin and the belly, and covered in lots of fat. This meat cut is best for grilling, either as a whole large chunk (we’re talking an easy 4 pounds) or as individual steaks. It’s also a nice alternative for hanger, flank, and skirt steaks.
• Top sirloin cap- this is a very rare but sizeable cut of tender, fatty beef located between the loin and the round. The top sirloin cap can be purchased as a two inch triangular piece of meat. It is composed of three different, rarely used muscles which make it extremely tender, and can easily be cooked by grilling (as steaks) or roasting (as a whole chunk of meat).
• Hanger steak- another rare cut rich with beefy flavors is the hanger steak, which lies among the cattle’s organs such as the diaphragm and kidneys. If you are looking to marinate and grill steaks, this is the best way to go. Although a bit rare, it’s quite known and sells out quickly in local butcher shops.
• Top round cap- aside from the wonderful top sirloin cap, there is also the top round cap, which resembles a skirt steak (and can be cooked as such), and is usually made into ground beef. It’s deep grains make it perfect for marinating, which can then be grilled or broiled.
• Sirloin tip center- hidden among the tough leg muscles of the cattle is the most tender cut of the cattle’s round, which is filled with deep, beefy flavors, and is great for grilling or roasting, and partnered with savory flavors and garnishes.
• Beef shank- this chunk of meat from the cattle’s lower legs is extremely tough, but once it’s braised, all the fat breaks down and the meat absorbs a ton of wonderful flavors. More importantly, the beef shank is the source of the coveted bone marrow, which gives off that rich, buttery flavor.

Other Meats

• Skirt steak- when talking about lesser known pork cuts, there is always the skirt steak, or better known as the secreto. It’s a tiny piece of meat (around 4 to 6 ounces) nestled in between the belly and the spare ribs. It’s wonderfully thin and easy to marinate and tenderize.
• Lamb shoulder- if you are into game, lamb is a wonderful meat for that amazing flavor, and the lamb shoulder gives you just that. It’s extremely versatile, and definitely cheaper than most other cuts of game meat. It’s got a lot of fat and connective tissue which are easy to tenderize over braising or slow-roasting, giving you that delicate, luscious flavor.

One thing that you have to keep in mind is that these cuts may come under a different name, depending on where you are located. Moreover, it’s best to ask your local butcher whether they carry these cuts and are willing to offer them. At the end of the day, it really depends on your butcher what kinds of meat cuts you can get.

Whether you are a butcher or a home cook, the same goes for you. That is, unless, you are fine with accidentally ruining a good piece of meat because of a dull knife, causing a bit of food poisoning due to a rusty knife, or generally just making your kitchen accident prone

We’ll let you in on some facts about the different types of knives and how to take care of them. 

The Different Types of Knives and How to Take Care of Them

Types of Kitchen Knives

These are some of the most common knives that you should have in your kitchen for just about whatever cutting and slicing you have to do, from bread, to vegetables, to meat.

• Bread Knives- these are long, serrated blades with an offset handle used to cut through crispy crusts without crumbling the bread into pieces
• Chef Knives- these are perhaps the most common knives found in every kitchen, have wide, tapering blades, and can be used for most tasks such as cutting, slicing, chopping, and mincing
• Boning Knives- these are available in many different options, from long to short, and flexible to stiff, and are all designed to cleanly separate meat from the bone
• Butcher Knives- these are slightly curvy knives with granton edges to break down meat into different cuts and even trim fat and silverskin
• Cleavers- these are big, long, knives with wide and thin blades, that, despite the intimidating appearance, are mostly used to chop and slice meat, and also cut up vegetables
• Paring Knives- these are short bladed knives designed for delicate tasks such as peeling vegetables, chopping fruits, deveining shrimp, and cutting cheese
• Slicing Knives- these ones feature long, straight blades with curved ends, and are designed especially for cooked meats such as hams, turkeys, and steaks
• Utility Knives- these are slightly longer than paring knives and have scalloped edges perfect for slicing fruits and vegetables

Aside from these common kitchen knives, there are also a lot of specialty knives for various purposes such as slicing cheese, preparing sushi and sashimi, shucking oysters, and so on, but most are for butchery. 

There are breaking knives and cimeter knives for breaking large meat into smaller pieces as well as trimming off fat, while flank and shoulder knives are specially designed to cut precise flank steaks. Meat carving knives are also available to handle cooked meats. 

Taking Care of Your Knives

A knife is basically a piece of stainless steel blade with a handle that is made out of either wood, plastic, or steel. It is important to ensure that these two are always intact, and that the blade is always sharp. 

To preserve the structural integrity of your knives, the best practice is to use them for the purpose they were designed to be used. Not doing so can not only ruin your food prep, but break the blade, or make it come loose from its handle. 

That said, knives should be washed regularly (by hand, not through the dishwasher) with warm, soapy water, then dried thoroughly and air dried to avoid rusting. 

When it comes to storing your knives, try to avoid using a knife block. That’s just a bad recipe for moisture, dirt, and mold buildup. Even though your knife may not be showing signs of rust, the insides of the handle can be slowly decaying and you are none the wiser. Magnetic knife holders or knife racks are better for safe storage. 

It should also be sharpened regularly with a good quality sharpening stone or knife sharpener. Remember, a sharp knife is safer and works better than a dull one, and makes your food better, too.

Butchers have existed around the same time humankind discovered the art of raising livestock, and will continue to exist for as long as there is a demand for meat, which is, well, until the end of time. 

However, with big supermarkets taking over our daily lives and addressing our grocery needs, we encounter butchers less and less. Often, we settle with pre-packaged meat that we grab straight from the freezer section, and with all the self check-out counters and online shops popping around, there really isn’t much human interaction anymore when we purchase our meat. 

So, perhaps it’s time to familiarize ourselves with just what it is butchers do, and why we need them in our lives.

Amazing Facts About Butchers

Butchers cut, prepare, and sell meat products.

This sounds a tad obvious, but bear with us. After all, a lot of people seem to think that butchers are only responsible for chopping up a slice of meat into small cubes and that’s that.

The stuff we get from supermarkets most likely come from industrial meat processors, which basically means the meat is largely processed by machines under minimal human supervision.

Local butchers, on the other hand, are very hands on in what happens to the meat, from the moment it arrives as a whole animal, until the point of sale where you get bite sized cubed meats and processed sausages.

Slaughter

Here’s how they do it: first, the carcass is cleaned up, the hair, skin, head, and feet are removed, then the body is cut up into large chunks called primals. Then, it is further cut up into retail sized pieces, which is what you see on meat counters. Butchers also do all the extra steps required, such as de-boning, trimming fat, and grinding.

Preparation

And, that’s just on preparing the meat. Butchers also often process meat products into delicious smoked hams, fatty burgers, chunky sausages, cured meats, and so on. These are freshly made in house, and from quality ingredients.

Sale and management

Furthermore, butchers are also in charge with the weighing, labelling, and pricing each meat product. When it comes to product management, they take the time to look for trustworthy suppliers from local farmers and producers, as well as take orders for meat processing services, like in the case of hunters looking for a butcher to handle his wild game.

Education

After all of that, they are also the ones who will sell these meat products to you, all while happily entertaining any questions you may have about meat. Your local butcher is ready to educate you on the many different meat cuts and what you can do with each one, how to handle meat safely, what kind of dishes you can prepare, how to best cook the meat, and so on.

 While there is no formal education for butchery and meat processing, all the years of hands on experience that butchers have make them extremely knowledgeable on all things meat. Well, you would be too if you deal with it day in and out.

Butchers are highly skilled professionals.

Since a butcher’s job is multifaceted, it goes to say that a butcher is highly skilled in various areas. Dealing with meat alone requires them to be physically fit and able, in order to lift whole animals, operate machinery, cleanly slice through muscle and bone, stand for long periods of time, and work under cold environments to preserve the meat.

 The attention to detail, precision, and patience required when performing certain meat cuts and preparing the meat into sumptuous processed products is really quite unparalleled. They also have to be able to identify exactly which is what and where it came from, and keep things clean and separate from each other at all times, all to avoid cross contamination and maintain the same quality throughout.

And, even though butchers work with dead animals for hours on end, they are also some of the most people oriented individuals you can ever come across. Since butchers handle the sale and management of their own products, they interact with a lot of suppliers and customers on a daily basis, and have developed superb customer service skills.

This is so they can understand their customers’ needs, educate the customer on what’s best for them, and entice them to buy meat from the butcher shop.

Why you are better off with an expert butcher

Picture this scenario: you are craving for the exotic and exciting flavors and textures of wild game, so you go out to do a bit of hunting, and after several hours of patiently waiting and a bit of trial and error, you finally get rewarded with the sweaty, exhausting task of hauling your prize back home. But, there’s still the daunting task of preparing, storing, and cooking the meat…

Sure, you can try to process your prized hunt on your own, but, unless your slaughter skills are as good as your hunting instincts, perhaps it’s best to leave the aftercare to the professionals. After all, what you get from your wild game greatly depends on the care it gets after you hunt and kill it.

Need Help With Wild Game Processing

The most obvious reason for bringing your wild game to a butcher shop is, of course, they have the know how and the tools to give you the most out of your meat. No, your steak knife simply won’t do in cutting through bones, thick muscles and fat, and stubborn tendons and cartilages.

And, unless you’ve been cutting your own meat for a really long time, your local butcher is guaranteed to know more in terms of the best cuts and the right methods, so you always end up with nicely textured, amazingly flavored meat.

If you’re not yet convinced, keep on reading!

Don’t worry- you get the exact meat you bring in.

One common apprehension of hunters when partnering with a butcher to cut and process their hunt is that they are scared they will be cheated out of meat, or what they get will be mixed with someone else’s game (or worse, mixed with meat from a different kind of animal).

Well, here’s the thing. While it is common practice to do a bit of co-mingling (or mixing of game from the same species) for processed meat products such as sausages, burgers, and pepperonis, and sometimes for small orders, that’s really not the case for fresh meat. 

It’s cost effective and less labor intensive to process meat in big batches rather than per single animal, but the opposite is typically true when you’re just preparing and butchering meat into retail cuts. In this case, mixing game entails inconsistency, a lot of unnecessary labor, and overall hassle. 

Of course, if you really want to be sure, it never hurts to ask. Your local butcher will be more than happy to explain to you the ins and outs of processing wild game meat. It’s also important that you find out whether there is a minimum weight requirement if you want an assurance that you don’t end up with mixed meat.

You’re safe- the meat will be meticulously cleaned before processing.

Any hunter knows that you don’t just chop off wild game into steak sized pieces right after you bring it home. A great deal of cleaning up has to be done before the meat can even be processed, much less cut into serving size pieces.

This process, of course, is a shared responsibility between you and your butcher, but you can rest knowing that your butcher is always there to pick up your slack in order to ensure that you get clean, safe, quality meat.

There are certain steps that you must do yourself right after bringing home the hunt, especially since it’s quite unrealistic to just drive straight to the butcher. This can include washing off dirt and blood, covering or wrapping up the game in plastic or cloth bags, and severing the head and feet.

It’s best to find out what your butcher requires you to do before bringing in the meat, so you can prepare accordingly. Typically, those mentioned above- and including field dressing or removing the skin, cleaning off the hair, and air drying- are the things that need to be taken care of, so be sure to ask who will do them.

You can be sure that your local butcher knows how to be meticulous and careful in going through these steps properly, so that the meat will not be damaged, or have unpleasant tastes and textures.