How to Choose Your Burger Meat

It's one thing to talk about artisan steaks. It's another to understand artisan burgers.

If I can give you any advice: Do not buy burger meat from your grocer.

The reason cited most often is risk of food poisoning. Please allow me to offer another reason to avoid grocery store ground beef and patties:

They don't actually taste that great! In fact, I'd say they don't taste much at all. Why else would we need to add seasonings to the beef or condiments on top?

At first glance, it doesn't make any sense that commodity burger meat is bland. Most is made from older cows or the steaks and roasts found in the front or back end where the muscles get more exercise. Exercise is one contributor to flavor.

There are two reasons that most grocery beef is bland.

1. Meat processors and grocers grossly oversimplify what drives taste, texture, and quality in beef.

We have been trained to think that USDA Grade (Select, Choice, or Prime) is the key contributor to quality, flavor, and juiciness. This is not true; flavor and texture also vary (a lot) depending on the breed, region, diet, aging techniques, and the relative talent of the grower, slaughterhouse, and butcher. This is as true for burgers as it is for steaks.

2. They are not selecting beef based on how good it’s going to taste in the first place.

To grocery stores and meat processors, beef is all about throughput and efficiency. Both industries have high capital costs but with rare exceptions do little to nothing to differentiate themselves vs. their competitors. As a result, they ultimately compete based on price and operate on very thin profit margins. In retail parlance, they literally calculate a "penny profit" - how many pennies do I make on each sale?

Rather than hand-select beef that will delight the palate, which would take time and money, most grocers select beef based on these criteria:

• How cheap it is (so they can increase penny profit)
• How much they can sell (so they can make an actual profit)
• How quickly they can sell it (so they don’t tie up cash too long in inventory)

Wait, you say, this is no different than any business, the idea is to lower the cost of inputs and sell at a profit.

To which I would respond, a company or brand that wants to say in business over time will also increase the value of what they are selling. In the case of ground beef, this means at minimum they would go out of their way to purposely offer really great tasting meat.

Where does this leave you if you want to enjoy a burger, some tacos, or nice bowl of chili?

Find a source of artisan quality artisan burgers! I use the same criteria as with artisan quality steaks, which you can find listed below.

If you’re a flavor hound, for burgers I would suggest that you look even harder for a good source of grass fed beef (just make sure you know what you’re getting, some misuse this terminology). When raised and aged properly, you’ll often find it to have a far more adventurous flavor. You will likely have also done a good thing for animal welfare and the environment while you were at it. That’s a win-win-win if I’ve ever heard one!

Finally, this post is part of Food Renegade's Fight Back Friday initiative meant to help individuals take control over what is on our plates. Every week I enjoy reading the posts of others who participate in the FBF carnival. I suggest that you take a look, too, and add your own post while you're at it!

Artisan Beef Institute® - Minimum Criteria For Artisan Quality Beef

• Specific farm or producer group (source-verified).
• Single breed or cross-breed.
• Known growing region.
  
• No added growth hormones (steroids, yuck!).
• No preventative antibiotics (if they can't keep healthy without 'em...).
• All vegetable diet, no funky stuff in there like stale chewing gum.
• Low stress conditions on farm, in truck, at yard (if relevant), & at slaughterhouse.
• Dry-aged or wet-aged for at least 14 days
• Bonus points: certified organic, humane, grass-only diet, holistic.

© All Rights Reserved. The Oliver Ranch Company®. The Artisan Beef Institute®

How To Avoid Mixing Things Up On The Grill

Do you ever find yourself having to cook for people who have different preferences? You like your steak rare but Uncle Bob won’t eat it if it’s a shade pinker than medium. Little Johnny likes his chicken spicy but Susie can’t take the heat?

Well this clever lady, Leslie Haywood, was tired of mixing things up on the grill, decided to do something about it, and voila, she created Grill Charms (TM). I think of them as like wine charms but for steaks!

Each charm has a different design (my favorite is the martini glass whereas my husband prefers to be king for the day). As you can see here, you simply push them into whatever you’re planning to cook and then cook as you normally would.

Now, Beef Geek that I am, I had to come up with a new, clever way to use these. In this case, I took a large Sirloin steak from the freezer, thawed it in a cold water bath, and then cut it into two sections. I wanted to see if the two pieces would taste different from each other.

You’re asking, why would one section of the exact same steak taste different than the other?

One thing that contributes to flavor and texture is the amount of exercise any one muscle gets. If you look at this picture, you can clearly see a fat seam running along the top right quadrant of this steak. I wondered whether the piece above, which had a noticeably different grain, got more or less exercise than the section below. My hypothesis was that it was a section called the Sirloin "Cap."

Well isn’t that interesting, there was a subtle but noticeable difference. The flavor was the same but the piece from above the seam had a bit more flavor overall.

I asked one of my favorite artisan butchers, Tracy Smaciarz of Heritage Meats in Rochester, Washington, to explain why. He confirmed that this was the "cap" and that most restaurants and stores cut it off to make the steaks look tidier.

Well I for one won't be cutting that section off of the Sirloin steaks I eat.

ps Grill Charms come in sets of 6 and there are four versions including the Steak Collection, Pink Collection, Spicy Collection, and Charmed Life Collection. You can order them online or find them at select retail stores.

Beef Industry Needs To Focus On Consumer

This headline's from today's www.CattleNetwork.com. What a great idea!

Let's see if the recommendations, from marketing specialist, Tad Schroeder, make sense. He starts with 5 errors the industry makes (my comments in italics):

• Defensiveness about criticism. "All that does is feed the fire." A tad vague, no comment.


• Too much secretiveness. "We need to be open and honest about what we're doing." Could not agree more. Tell us exactly what's on our plate and how it got there. See this for a start.


• Camouflaging through labeling gimmicks. For example, Schroeder said, "The word 'natural' in the meat case means almost nothing." Hallelujah!


• Assuming "consumers are stupid." "They're not stupid. They're very savvy, and they have lots of information." And I'm trying to make them smarter.


• Scare tactics. Eh?

And follows with 5 tips:

• Give 'em what they want.


• Show and tell our story.


• Invest in new technologies that are aimed at consumers.


• Coordinate and share information within the industry, rather than keeping it secret for what may be a short-term competitive advantage that hurts the industry in the long term.


• Give 'em your 800 number." Encouraging consumer feedback sends the message, "I'm proud of this. Come talk to me about it."

Hmmmmmmm... These are a little vague, so let me try.

This is what we care about.

• We care about supporting good farms and workers.


• We care about protecting our families from bad stuff in the beef.


• We care about happy cows.


• We care about keeping our environment clean.


• We care about great taste and texture.

Bottom line: Tell us exactly what's on our plate, where it's from and how it was raised and aged. Then let us decide if we want to buy from you or the other guy.

Finally, do not snooker us into believing that USDA Prime tastes better than Choice or Select. Admit it, marbling is just one factor. Different breeds raised on different farms on different diets and aged with different techiques will taste different from each other - even if they score the same USDA grade. And this is a good thing, my gosh, imagine tailoring different beef styles to each individual's personal taste buds!

If you have any doubts, please call me, I will send you an artisan steak tasting kit to prove it.

The Provenance of Beef - Let The Steak Tastings Begin!

Sometimes dreams do come true, and this one was mine.

60 people were on hand - we sold out twice! - as we formally launched our Artisan Beef Institute to the public in tandem with the highly regarded Commonwealth Club of California's 3rd Annual "How We Eat" series.

In the planning for nearly 3 years, The Artisan Beef Institute's(r) "Provenance of Beef(tm)" series combines an interactive expert panel discussion and comparison steak tasting.

Now mind you, this wasn't about tasting different cuts of "Choice" or "Prime" steaks. Designed to appeal to those seeking to support great ranchers and sustainability, this was something entirely new, was one heck of a lot of fun, and as one guest commented, "made me smarter about beef than anyone else I know, how cool is that?!"

The evening began with an interactive expert panel discussing how individual ranchers, butchers, and chefs influence the taste and texture of beef to create connoisseur quality on the plate.

Then, participants were taken through a blind taste test of four different “styles” of beef from different natural ranches, each representing a different breed, region, diet, and aging technique. Guests were encouraged to use a brand new tasting guide developed by ABI (let's face it, meaty, beefy, juicy, and tender pretty much sums up our vocabulary when it comes to beef).

Q&A with members of the panel follows along with a full four-course meal, including wine pairings from Napa’s Atalon Vineyards.

Importantly, panelists stressed how low stress management techniques and sustainable land management aren't just the right things to do, they contribute directly to beef flavor, quality, and texture. (I argue that connoisseur quality beef is by definition raised with care and respect.)

The main takeaway? Relying on USDA Grade or labels such as organic or grass-fed is not enough. No different than with wine, to enjoy genuinely natural or organic, connoisseur quality beef, you need to know the source and to know the details of what is on the plate: the breed, diet, growing region and the husbandry, harvesting, processing and aging techniques.

The other fun takeaway? I just love this as I’ve seen it anecdotally over three years of blind steak tastings but this was a big enough crowd to gauge the statistical probabilities.

When asked to vote for their favorite, the scores were evenly distributed between the four ranches / beef styles.

So there you have it: There is no such thing as the perfect steak!

But there IS a perfect steak for you.

Here are the styles we tasted. Three are in our marketplace www.oliverranch.com and the other, from the fabulous Mac Magruder in Potter Valley, CA, can be found at Café Rouge in Berkeley, Woodlands Market in Kentfield, and on the menu at Oliveto in Berkeley.

• Dry-Aged Charolais, grain-finished, Elliott & Ferris Families, Front Range Region, CO


• Dry-Aged Black Angus-Shorthorn Cross, grass-only, Mac Magruder, Potter Valley, CA


• Wet-Aged Wagyu-Angus Cross, grain-finished, Kobe Beef America, finished in Holdrege, NE


• Wet-Aged Holstein-Friesian, grain-finished, Bob Beechinor, Bakersfield, CA

Compliments To The Elliott & Ferris Families

My colleagues, Carl and Christopher Cosack, visited a Colorado ranch recently and sent me back some samples of the ranch’s dry-aged, grain-finished Charolais and Charolais-cross rib-eye steaks. I was saving the steaks for a special blind taste testing party but my husband didn't know this and accidentally cooked one up.

Hats off to the Elliott and Ferris families who raised this beef. The steak was full of flavor -- it even stood up to some fairly strong competition from the Montreal Steak salt used as a marinade. And it was plenty tender.

It’s worth noting that we cooked up a strip loin from our local butcher alongside the rib-eye. Not a perfectly fair comparison but the strip loin was milder tasting and thus in my opinion a bit overwhelmed by the marinade. FYI, the butcher couldn’t tell us the breed but based on my experience with taste testing, the strip loin was likely Angus-cross, as Angus influence seems to produce a lighter flavor (bland to me, yummy to others.)

Anyway, if you happen to like steak with a lot of flavor, try to get your hands on some dry-aged Charolais beef. Suspect the best way to enjoy the steaks is to serve them naked – once they’re cooked, drizzle a little olive oil and maybe a squeeze of lemon and a dusting of sea salt. But if you want a simple twist, here’s a simple recipe:

Ingredients:

Charolais or Charolais-cross Rib Eye Steaks
At least 1” thick and preferably dry-aged 14-21 days
Montreal Steak salt (MSG-free)
Worcestershire Sauce (we use Lea & Perrins)
Hickory Chips
Aluminum Foil

Preparation:

Generously sprinkle both sides of the steaks with Montreal Steak salt and Worcestershire sauce. Let marinade at room temperature (covered) about 15 minutes while you prepare the grill.

Pre-heat gas or charcoal grill to high (about 475 F). While it’s heating, put a handful or two of hickory chips in a 12” section of foil and fold in the sides and top to create a pouch. Punch 10-20 small holes in the foil pouch and place it on the grill. It will start to smoke.

Sear the steaks on one side for 2-3 minutes (lid closed) and then flip them with a spatula or tongs and reduce the heat to medium high (about 400 F). Grill the steaks to rare or medium rare (or more if you like, though you’ll lose some flavor and tenderness). Let steaks rest at least 5 minutes before cutting and then serve ‘em up, sliced or whole.

Feel free of course to use your own grilling techniques. Just don’t pierce the steaks while they’re cooking or resting or you’ll lose the juices that keep it moist.

Note: I personally recommend that you choose from farm or ranch like Colorado's Best Beef Company that finishes their beef without the use of synthetic growth enhancers (e.g. sub-therapeutic antibiotics or growth hormones). At minimum, they can negatively influence the taste and tenderness of the meat.

The Great Fish Masquerade

Seems that the global fish industry is up to something, well, fishy: mislabeling in order to undermine marketing campaigns meant to help consumers choose more eco-friendly fish.

According to an article by Jennifer Jacquet on AlterNet, long-line caught hake (left photo) is out there masquerading as tilapia (right photo), the darling of the sustainable fish movement. The endangered shark is being recast as scallops, flounder, or tuna...

So how do you tell what fish is really on your plate?

The beef industry has the technology to trace specific lots or even specific steaks back to a particular farm or cattle. The technology may not be used much except by some of the better natural or organic beef programs out there. But at least it exists.

Traceability for fish seems a bigger challenge. After all, some fish are still harvested from the open oceans, where there aren't any fences.

I personally think the solution for beef (and other meats) is to leverage source-verification technology to provide complete transparency to the consumer. Let us know the breed, where it was raised, how it was raised, what it ate, where it was slaughtered, etc. and let us vote with our wallets to support sustainability or specific farms or whatever criteria are important to us.

Wondering if anyone is trying to offer up a similar solution for fish.