For Beginners and the Best Cooks — 3

HOW TO JUDGE MEAT

Beef—Ask for young beef. Look for the porous reddish bones of the
young animal. Meat should bea bright red colour when freshly cut, mottled
all through with white or creamy (not yellow) fat, with an outer layer of fat.
Fine smooth grain, velvety appearance to tender cuts, with no gristle or
long fibres; learn how fibres lengthen in parts naturally less tender, which
require special cooking method to make them tender.

Lamb—Pinkish red colour, fine-grained firm meat, smooth and velvety;
lightly mottled and covered with fat; porous reddish bone.

Veal—Flesh of the calf is very light grayish pink, becoming more pink
as older; thin covering of firm fat. Fine-grained velvety texture, no
mottling; porous, soft reddish bone.

Pork—Grayish white lean meat when young, deepening to rosy tone in
older animal; marbled and covered with white firm fat; firm, fine smooth-
grained texture; juicy but not wet.

CUTS TO BUY
Beef—

Steaks for broiling—porterhouse (with tenderloin—“undercut’’); sliced
tenderloin; sirloin; small wing, T-bone or club steaks.

Oven roasts—tender, prime ribs with bone, or boned and rolled; sirloin;
tenderloin; porterhouse; wing; top round of baby beef.

Pot roast, beef a la mode, braised beef—round, rump, chuck, brisket,
short ribs, flank (for stuffing).

Stews, meat pies, boiled beef—neck, shoulder, chuck, rump, flank
steak, round steak.

Chopped beef—lower round, flank, shoulder, neck.
Soup—neck, shank, also oxtails. |
Edible organs—tongue, sweet breads, liver, heart, kidneys, tripe.

Lamb—.

Roast—leg, shoulder (preferably boned and rolled), loin (the crown
ribs), the rack, though heavier in bone.

Braised—shoulder.

“Boiled” (really simmered)—leg, shoulder, breast.

Stew, ragofit, curry—breast, neck, chuck—or left-over cooked meat.
Chops—loin, ribs; shoulder.

Lamb steaks cut from leg.

Casserole cuts—shoulder, chuck, neck.

Chopped lamb—shoulder, chuck, neck.

Edible organs—tongue, heart, kidneys.