Meat Illustrated: A Foolproof Guide to Understanding and Cooking with Cuts of All Kinds

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(as of Nov 26, 2023 04:36:07 UTC – Details)

2021 IACP Award Winner in the General Category

Increase your meat counter confidence with this must-have companion for cooking beef, pork, lamb, and veal with more than 300 kitchen-tested recipes.

Part cookbook, part handbook organized by animal and its primal cuts, Meat Illustrated is the go-to source on meat, providing essential information and techniques to empower you to explore options at the supermarket or butcher shop (affordable cuts like beef shanks instead of short ribs, lesser-known cuts like country-style ribs, leg of lamb instead of beef tenderloin for your holiday centerpiece), and recipes that make those cuts (72 in total) shine.

Meat is a treat; we teach you the best methods for center-of-the-plate meats like satisfying Butter-Basted Rib Steaks (spooning on hot butter cooks the steaks from both sides so they come to temperature as they acquire a deep crust), meltingly tender Chinese Barbecued Roast Pork Shoulder (cook for 6 hours so the collagen melts to lubricate the meat), and the quintessential Crumb-Crusted Rack of Lamb. Also bring meat beyond centerpiece status with complete meals: Shake up surf and turf with Fried Brown Rice with Pork and Shrimp. Braise lamb shoulder chops in a Libyan-style chickpea and orzo soup called Sharba.

Illustrated primal cut info at the start of each section covers shopping, storage, and prep pointers and techniques with clearly written essays, step-by-step photos, break-out tutorials, and hundreds of hand-drawn illustrations that take the mystery out of meat prep (tie roasts without wilderness training; sharply cut crosshatches in the fat), so you’ll execute dishes as reliably as the steakhouse. Learn tricks like soaking ground meat in baking soda before cooking to tenderize, or pre-roasting rather than searing fatty cuts before braising to avoid stovetop splatters. Even have fun with DIY curing projects.

From the Publisher

Meat Illustrated

72 cuts, 350 delicious recipes, countless techniques

Best Roast Prime Rib

Inside your Foolproof Meat Guide Beef & Veal: Chuck, Rib, Short Loin, Tenderloin, Sirloin, Round, Brisket, Plate, Flank, Short Ribs, Shank and Oxtails, and Veal Lamb: Soulder, Rib and Loin, Leg and Shanks Pork: Blade Shoulder, Arm Shoulder, Pork Loin, Side, Leg Ground Meat: Ground Beef, Pork, and Lamb

Become a Meat Master

Increase your meat counter confidence

Part cookbook, part handbook organized by animal and its primal cuts, Meat Illustrated provides essential information and techniques to empower you to explore options and recipes that make those cuts shine. With 300 recipes for cooking beef, pork, lamb, and veal, you’ll learn the tricks and techniques behind your favorite primal cuts.

Chapters are organized around cuts: Unlike books that are separated only by protein, this cookbook is broken down into sections on primal cuts so cooks try more. Spreads on the cuts build confidence: Each meat is introduced with thoughtful essays on how to buy, prep, and cook it. Instruction and illustrations set you up for success with recipes that follow. Become the butcher: Impress by grinding your own burger blends, smoking your own baking, and making Homemade Sausage (without a sausage maker). Learn how to make smaller cuts from larger roasts.

Beef

Beef is favored for many reasons; in fact, our bodies just might be wired to crave it. You might coat a tenderloin in a horseradish crust for company during the holidays, look forward to ordering a crusty rib eye when you go to a steakhouse, pile a beef burger high with your favorite toppings, seek out supreme brisket with an impressive smoke ring, or cook a warming beef stew on a winter night. The meat for these timeless (and, we’d say, essential) recipes comes from the animal with the most primal cuts, each of which cooks a bit differently.

Veal

Veal has long been revered in Europe for its supreme tenderness and delicate flavor; here in the United States, it’s not as popular and is seen in restaurants more often than home kitchens. But veal doesn’t have to be fancy (or pricey); you can make veal dishes easily at home. The delicate meat takes well to delicate flavors—often those from France—and more collagen-rich veal cuts, like those from the shoulder and shank, are nice when stewed.

Pork

Pork is the mose beloved meat internationally, though it’s the runner-up to beef in popularity in the United States. While beef’s flavor lives on a simple spectrum from milder with little fat to beefier with more fat, pork possesses a range of flavors, depending on where the cut is from: Pork can be mild and almost poultry-like if from the loin, fatty and unctuous around the belly, sweet and robust from the shoulder, meaty and rich from the back end.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cook’s Illustrated; Illustrated edition (October 27, 2020)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 432 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1948703327
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1948703321
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 3.6 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.06 x 1.06 x 10.69 inches