Choosing the right meat is a whole science, which you can comprehend all your life. And if to a novice hostess all the meat on the counter seems the same, then an experienced hostess knows how not only to distinguish beef from pork, but also to choose the best piece in the entire market. It is on the market, because experts generally do not recommend buying meat in a supermarket. Buying frozen prepackaged meat is like playing Russian roulette. You can never guess whether and for how long such meat was stored, how the animals from which it was made were fed, how many antibiotics and hormones it contains.

Meat on the market

The first thing people usually look for when buying meat is its color. But this approach is amateurishness. The color of the meat is very important, but you need to start with another. The most important thing is to choose that part of the carcass, the meat from which will be optimal for the dish you have conceived. That is why butchers are often interested in what you are going to cook, and only then offer one or another cut. Tender tenderloin is great meat, but not when you are going to boil jellied meat. You can buy a great piece of beef and ruin it hopelessly in the process. Therefore, first we look out for the desired cut on the counter, and then we begin to examine it for suitability.

So the color. Good fresh meat is never greenish or black, it does not shine with petrol stains - it pleases us with all shades of red. Fresh beef is just red, lamb is a little darker than beef, pork is pink, veal is deep pink. Skillful sellers refresh stale meat by soaking it in a solution of potassium permanganate. This trick can be revealed by looking closely at the color of fat and bones: potassium permanganate will color them pinkish and yellow.

Yellow fat is a sign of an old animal. This means that such meat will be tough, and it will take longer to cook it. Good young beef has white fat and crumbles, high-quality pork is distinguished by white-pink elastic layers of fat. The highest grade of beef is marbled beef, in which the meat is evenly penetrated with fat veins. When cooked, such meat turns out to be especially tender and juicy.

The surface of the meat can be slightly windy if you show up at the market for lunch, and not in the morning, when the carcasses have just been cut. To the touch, fresh meat has an elastic consistency and is practically dry: it does not stick to the hands, it is not covered with mucus.

The smell of meat is an excellent marker of freshness. The presence of even a subtle unpleasant aroma in meat is a reason to instantly turn around and go look for another butcher. But there is a subtlety here too. Non-castrated pig meat, for example, can look and smell perfect when raw. But when cooked, such meat will clearly smell of urine, depriving you not only of a good mood, but also of dinner. To protect yourself from such surprises, you can ask the butcher to cut a microscopic piece from the selected cut and set it on fire with a lighter or a match. It smells like barbecue - feel free to buy, it smells unpleasant - the purchase is canceled.

Meat in the store

Unfortunately, there are no generous butcher consultants in the store. So you have to figure it out yourself. Having fished out the frozen briquette from the display-refrigerator, first of all, read the label. It at least says when the product is produced and until what time it is good. A large amount of meat sold in retail chains is imported. Meat is brought from Poland, Argentina, and even Australia. Of course, frozen it has done a fair amount of way to your store shelf. For minced meat, such meat may be fine, but the steak from it will be like a sole.

If possible, choose meat from local producers. It is definitely fresh imported, and our livestock raising technology is not yet so advanced, so the level of hormones and antibiotics in meat from local cows will not go off scale.

If a package of meat brought home starts to ooze miasms when defrosting, take it back to the store - you bought rotten meat. Most likely, you will get your money back without any dispute.

When buying chilled meat, pay attention to the integrity of the packaging. There should be no cracks in the foam backing or holes in the plastic wrap. Make sure the meat has not expired.

And finally, a tip: don't fall for the tricks of marketers. "Natural beef" is a term as meaningless as the "cholesterol-free" label on mineral water bottles. However, free-range beef, fed not with fishmeal and compound feed, but with grass and hay, is really better in quality and more expensive than the meat of cows from a conventional farm.

How to choose the right beef. Even inexperienced hobby chefs are well aware that one of the criteria for the tenderness of various cuts of beef is the ability to select the correct cuts from the cut of the carcass. Pieces of meat from the middle of the back (here are the muscles that only support the body and do not participate in movement) have a more delicate structure.

The entrecote and sirloin parts taken from here, including sirloin and thick rim, are great for: preparing many dishes, including steaks. In the forearm, thigh, chest and rib cuts, the connective tissue, on the contrary, is highly developed. Average connective tissue development - in the dorsal and scapular-neck cuts. The back meat is more tender and works well for frying and grilling, while the front meat has a strong smell, is tougher and requires slow cooking with added liquid.
Russia has adopted its own beef carcass cutting scheme and its own terminology, which will be useful for all avid meat eaters:
1-2. The neck (top and bottom) is
meat belongs to the second grade, it is better to buy it in the form of minced meat. The lower part of the neck used to be called a dime, and the upper part was a cut.
3. Shoulder - this meat belongs to the first grade, it is quite suitable for stewing (goulash, stew) and frying, but requires a long preparation.
4-5. Rib part (thick edge) - first-class meat, in its entirety consists of 13 ribs: the first 3 are attached to the lower part of the shoulder blade, they are removed; the next 4 ribs are usually sold as a whole piece, which is cooked as meat on the bones, but the bones can be cut and cooked in the form of a roll; the next 3 ribs contain more meat; the rest of the ribs are a rather expensive cut of tender meat.
6. Loin (thin edge, roast beef) - a premium cut of tender meat that can be fried and grilled; in the middle of this part is the tenderloin (sirloin).
7. Rump - prime lean meat for frying and grilling.
8. Ham (rump, thigh) - prime meat, lean cut, which is well suited for stewing in a pot, and for steak with blood; this part of the carcass can be salted, stewed or fried. The part closest to the tail is called the “hump” and is used for roast.
9. Shank - Lean beef of the third grade, intended for stewing (the name refers only to the hind leg) or for cooking broth.
10-11. Barrel (flank) - rather cheap second-class meat, used for stews or stewing.
12. Upper rib part (trim) - lean meat; it is freed from the bones, rolled into a roll and used, for example, for stewing in a pot.
13. Brisket - premium meat; it is sold without bones in the form of a roll and is suitable for boiling, stewing, soups (for example, for pickle), in stews and pilaf.
14. Shank - meat of the third grade, requires a long cooking (the name refers only to the front leg).

Different parts of the carcass have different culinary qualities, so you need to know which part to cook from. The softest and most tender part of the beef carcass - the tenderloin - is fried whole or in portions. Thick and thin edges have the same purpose. The upper and lower parts of the hind leg are fried in portions, and the side and outside are stewed, boiled and
used for the preparation of cutlet mass. Brisket, edging, shank are most often boiled, and cutlet mass, minced meat and braces for broths are prepared from the neck, flank and scraps. For pork and lamb, for frying whole, in large and small portions, use the loin and hind leg, for frying and stewing whole and in small pieces - a shoulder and brisket, for cooking cutlet mass and minced meat - the neck. For cabbage soup and borscht, beef brisket, edging, rump of the hind leg are best suited. For frying, take meat from the back (thick edge) and lumbar (thin edge) and the inner fillet (tenderloin). Rum, thigh and rump are recommended for stewing. Any part of the carcass is suitable for minced meat, with the exception of the shank and brisket. Good minced meat for cutlets, dumplings is obtained from the edge (intercostal pulp).

A few words about the juiciness of beef - surely some of the former meat-eaters have moved into the enemy camp of vegetarians, dislocating their jaw in an attempt to chew a sole-shaped entrecote or breaking a tooth on a granite steak ... Supporters of low-fat diets will have to accept - the juiciness of beef (alas!) Directly depends on its fat content. One of the finest American beefs called marble beef alternates the lean pulp with the finest veins of fat that make the meat so juicy and tender.

One of the common mistakes novice meat eaters make is the belief in the tenderness and juiciness of fresh meat. The meat of a freshly killed animal is non-aromatic, tough, poorly digested and has an unpleasant odor. Ripe meat has the best taste, that is, one that is aged for about a day after the slaughter of the animal. Correctly selected beef must necessarily mature, during which the so-called meat acid is formed in it, fermentation begins under the influence of air, and it is saturated with new colors and shades of taste. Medium fat and middle aged beef is usually aged for four to eight days, veal - 3-4 days, and, for example, selected English and American marbled beef is aged after slaughter for 21 days at a temperature of minus 2-3 ° C, as a result of which it becomes unusually soft, juicy and aromatic.

The method of frying is also of great importance for the juiciness of meat. The more moisture the meat loses in the pan, the drier and tougher it becomes. Therefore, you should not cook an excellent tenderloin in fat or oil - it is best to fry fresh juicy meat in a dry hot frying pan for a few minutes on both sides, and salt each side only after browning. By the way, it is best to beat beef on a board dipped in cold water, since dry wood absorbs meat juice.

For preparing meat dishes, it is best to eat meat from young animals. It can be easily distinguished by its color. Meat from animals under six weeks of age is light pink to light red in color and has a dense white inner fat. Young meat (up to two years old) is light red with almost white fat. The meat of adult animals (two to five years old) is juicy, tender, red. In older animals (over five years old), the meat is dark red, the fat is yellow. The best nutritional properties are found in beef sourced from animals under five years of age,pork - from animals 7-10 months of age and lamb - from 1-2 years old animals.

Good quality meat is covered with a thin crust of pale pink or pale red color and does not stick to the fingers at the incisions. When feeling its surface, the hand remains dry, the pits from the pressure of the fingers quickly disappear. To determine the freshness of the meat, you can prick it with a heated knife or fork. If it is of poor quality, the knife or fork will smell bad. Now that we've learned to choose beef it's time to learn

Probably, we will not be mistaken if we say that most people in our country think that you need to go to the market for the best quality meat. In fact, in relation to, say, beef, this statement is controversial: large producers like Miratorg or Zarechny sell their products through stores. But yes, you can find really great meat in good markets. We went to one of these markets - the Moscow Dorogomilovsky market - together with a man who knows a lot about meat: Bulat Ibragimov, the chef of the Yuzhane restaurant. And they asked him to tell you what to look for when buying different parts of beef carcass, so that at home, after cooking, you will not be disappointed.

“I always first of all pay attention to how beef is sold on the market. It is necessary that basic hygiene standards be observed: the meat should lie, for example, not on dirty cardboard boxes, but on a clean cloth. Then I look at the meat itself. First, you have to sniff it. The beef should have a pleasant milky flavor. Spoiled meat smells bad. But they often sell old meat - not spoiled, just meat from old animals - that smells like a barn. This barn shouldn't be here either. Secondly, the meat must be carefully examined. You can navigate by color, but you can't always guess. Shades are different - from blood red to rose red. The color depends on whether it is ripe beef or not, it is young or older, and sometimes - on the breed and fattening. But there are still a few one hundred percent rules. Ripe beef, for example, has a bright red color. This is because moisture comes out of the meat and in it, roughly speaking, all the meat becomes more concentrated. Another important indicator is that old meat will always be a bright dark red. More about the appearance: there can be no bloody smudges and bruises on the meat that arise from improper slaughter. And, naturally, it should not be windy.

Thirdly, the meat must be touched. It should be elastic, should not be soft and watery - if so, this indicates that the meat has been repeatedly frozen and thawed. The fibers should not fall apart: if you see this, it is a sign that the meat is stale. The age of an animal can be determined by the color of the fat. If the fat is thick, dense, yellow and looks like lard, this means that it has been formed for a long time, the animal has managed to live a long time. The older the fat, the less fusible it is. But if we take, for example, a tenderloin where there is no fat, then the age can be determined by its size: a large, adult animal will have a large tenderloin. It is also worth paying attention to the fact that there are no blood clots, hematomas, or any other formations in the meat that should not be in the meat. Their presence indicates the wrong slaughter - or that the animal was sick.

Many people think that fresh meat is something that has just been slaughtered and taken to the market as soon as possible. In fact, butchering a freshly slaughtered bull or cow is almost impossible. Their muscles are relaxed, like porridge, and such a carcass cannot be cut efficiently: the butcher will constantly miss, and a bunch of muscles will be spoiled in vain. After slaughter, the carcass should hang loose so that the muscles become numb, and only then go to the market. All this meat, which is now in front of us on the market, comes from animals that were slaughtered, most likely a week ago, or maybe earlier. What we usually see on the market is meat chopped like in The Book of Delicious and Healthy Food: brisket, front, back and edges, thin and thick. In America and Europe, a different cut is common, taking into account that a significant part of the carcass can go to steaks, which can be sold for much more money.

Now about the individual parts of the mascara. The shoulder blade has a layer of fat and veins. If we choose a scapula for a steak or for roast beef, then it should be marble: with thin patches of fat. You can ask the seller to make a cut: if there are no such layers there, then this meat is only suitable for baking, and even better - for cooking, stewing, or in order to put it on minced meat. The entrecote on the bone should be carefully cut off, and the bone should be free of chips and without bone chips - all this can then get into the finished dish, and this is dangerous. The entrecote should not be thick or thin - about three to four centimeters in thickness. Usually only a part of a ham is bought home, the one without the bone. About a ham you need to know that there is usually no fat on it, and if there is, then quite a bit. If you need to buy a whole ham (this is a piece weighing from three to five kilograms), then again you need to make sure that the bone does not have sharp chips and bone chips. The neck is boneless and boneless. If the neck is on the bone, then you can check its quality like this: you need to take the neck by the bone and raise it - the meat should be dense and collected, it should not dangle loosely, this is an indicator of staleness. When choosing brisket, there are no specific criteria other than freshness. When the brisket is sold in one large piece, then a thick layer of fat is attached to it, and if you do not want to buy it, but want to buy only meat, then look for the piece from which the fat has already been removed. It will most likely be slightly more expensive. If you are using a chopped brisket, then the fat on the sides should be 3-4 millimeters wide. A thicker layer means that the animal was fed grain or that it is an older animal (in which case the fat will also be yellowish).

Tenderloin is a thin oblong piece of meat, thicker at the base, thinner at the end, no more than half a meter in length. Uniform meat without veins, except for the one that covers the tenderloin on top. It is not difficult to get rid of it: you need to pry it off with a sharp knife and carefully remove it, moving the knife blade parallel to the vein. Often the tenderloin is sold already peeled, but then it costs more. It's not uncommon to find a thick and thin edge on the market. You can't confuse them. The thick edge is the ribeye, the dorsal cut that runs from the 6th to the 12th rib. It has two main muscles - spinalis and longissimus, and if you look at a piece cut from this cut from above, you can see how one muscle is superimposed on the other. And the thin edge is the lumbar part, a thin flat single-muscle piece of meat with a light layer of fat on top. Cheeks used to be fed to dogs, and recently this part of the carcass has become, as they say, fashionable. Very often, the cheeks are sold together with the internal oral cavity, which is unsuitable for eating, so it is better to buy an already completely cut off cheek, it looks like a dense muscle.

When choosing a tail, you need to look at its thickness: it should be large in diameter and dense. The most valuable thing in the tail is the thick vertebra, which is adjacent to the body, there is the most meat. There is no need to take a tail that is too thin, little will come of it. You also need to know that there is a lot of fat in oxtail, and little in cow tails, but they are ideal for broth. One of my favorite parts of the mascara is the leg. You can ask the butcher to cut it in half so that the gelatin comes out of it better during cooking and so that the leg gives more flavor. This part should be the freshest - soft, shiny and not windy, moisture should appear on the cut, and the bone part should be removed from the hoof.

If the meat should lie down before selling and cooking, then the offal should be fresh, the fresher the better. Freshness can be identified by traces of blood, gloss and moisture. The liver and spleen should be shiny and have a pleasant milky smell. It is also worth paying attention to the integrity of the pieces - so that there are no breaks (this is generally important for all giblets). There is nothing more to look out for. When choosing a light, you need to look closely at its color. It should be pale pink with bloody capillaries and firm to the touch. You should not expect a milky smell from the buds - make sure they are shiny, that is, fresh. When choosing a language, you also need to focus on humidity. The tongue is covered with dense skin, the freshness of the product can be judged by the cut. The color of the tongue depends on the breed, you should not pay attention to this. The heart is a strained muscle that works very hard, performing the same movement. It is easy to choose a heart - if it is bloody, it means that it is very fresh and more recently pumped blood.

The udder should be shiny, firm - but also loose. It will take a very long time to cook. Even after boiling, the texture remains firm with a strong milky scent. Yet this is not meat, but a large mammary gland. The rumen is the largest part of a cow's stomach. Before selling it, it is boiled in boiling water and cleaned with brushes - but nevertheless, a strong specific smell remains all the same. Make sure it is well cleaned and its mesh is white and translucent. Bovine eggs are sold in the market uncut. When buying, again, you need to look at the humidity - fresh testicles should be shiny. They must be cleaned carefully: make a thin longitudinal cut and remove the film, which is completely unsuitable for human consumption. Inside the egg, light flesh will be found, in which all the value of this product is. It is not at all like meat - soft flesh that is usually quickly fried without pre-processing.

In the carcass, bones start to deteriorate most quickly, so they should be as fresh as possible. A large bone, which chefs call a dumbbell, is ideal for broths. It must be chopped up so that during cooking the bone marrow comes out of it, which will make the broth richer. The end parts of the bone, that is, the knees, are called moto skis. They also need to be cut into four parts so that the brain comes out. It takes a long time to cook such a bone, about six hours. After the butcher has cut the bone, look at the saw cut - the brain should be wet, blood may appear slightly, it should be yellow or white in color. You can also ask to cut such a bone into washers - it is good to bake them with parsley and garlic. The most delicious product in a cow is brains: they are fatty, soft, tender. It's almost impossible to buy them just like that, they (like, by the way, udders) must be ordered on the market in a few days - from trusted sellers. "

Many novice cooks and housewives are thinking about the question of how to choose beef so that the purchased piece of meat is of high quality and is juicy and tasty. And to do this, oddly enough, is not at all difficult, the main thing is to clearly find out why the beef is being bought. Let's discuss some of the intricacies of choosing this type of meat.

The choice of meat for its purpose

First of all, before choosing beef, you should decide for yourself why you are buying meat and what you want to do with it. After all, the purpose of it depends on which piece of mascara you have to choose, and how it should look. And first of all, for this you need to understand that the softest meat is the muscles that are least involved in the cow during her movement, and the toughest are the muscles that are constantly in motion. Therefore, if you plan to fry meat, for this purpose you should take the top of the cow's carcass, starting from the back. If you want to taste a boiled dish, then you need to take the lower part of the cow carcass, and the middle part is suitable for stewing.

Well, or you can remember that you can fry rump or fillet, fillet or tenderloin with a fat layer is suitable for baking, and sirloin, thigh or brisket are needed for stewing. Every housewife knows that a rich broth can be prepared from a piece of meat with bones, tendons and cartilage.

Market or supermarket

Many people believe that it is best to buy beef in a supermarket, where it is already packaged and frozen. However, this is not at all the case, because store meat most often does not breathe, and during the time it is under the cellophane film it loses many of its beneficial properties. Therefore, it is better to go to the market to buy meat. However, despite the fact that the bazaar is the best place to buy this product, when deciding how to choose beef in the market, it is important to be aware of a few nuances. And first of all, it is better to bypass the counter, where next to the meat you will see puddles of water, which are formed due to the fact that the sellers spray it on the beef to make it look better. This is how they mask the loss of quality. But if the meat looks slightly dried, then this is not at all scary and will not affect the quality of the product in any way.

Beef selection rules

So, you have already decided on the choice of a cow and where to buy it. Now it is very important to remember how to choose the right beef among the many cuts of meat so that you do not regret your decision later.

1. In no case should you choose meat, focusing on its low cost, because a good quality product cannot be cheap in any way, and even for the highest quality marbled beef you will have to pay a tidy sum.
2. You should take a good look at the product, as its appearance can tell a lot about its quality.
3. It is advisable to smell the piece of beef offered to you by the seller to make sure of its pleasant aroma, otherwise it will indicate that the meat has deteriorated.
4. Whenever possible, you need to touch the beef to determine if the meat is loose and try to choose the piece that turns out to be the most elastic.

How to choose beef by appearance

The main thing that you need to pay close attention to is the appearance of the piece provided to you. First of all, the color of the meat should be even, without any dark spots and greens, which indicate a deterioration in its quality. The color itself should be bright red, which will confirm the freshness of the beef, while the red-brown color of the meat will signal the vigilant buyer that the beef is already old and not at all fresh. It is also important to look at the fat layers, which will be white in a fresh piece, the yellowish color of the layers will tell you that the cow has lived to a ripe old age. Plus, you definitely need to see that there are no crusts on the meat, which indicate that it has been sold for a long time and unsuccessfully, which means that such beef cannot be taken.

How to choose meat by smell

When buying meat, it is very important to sniff the piece. The beef should smell good and not have any foreign aromas. After all, if the smell of onions, vinegar, various spices comes from the meat, then this indicates that its shelf life has expired, and they want to sell it as soon as possible. The absence of at least some smell from the meat should also alert, because this suggests that the cow was raised with the help of harmful chemical additives that accelerate its growth, which means that such a product will be very harmful to health. And, finally, in no case should you take beef, from which a rotten smell emanates, because such meat has deteriorated a long time ago, which means that you need to leave the counter as soon as possible.

Choosing meat by touching a piece

If you have not yet been able to make a choice, simply by smelling or looking at a piece, then the last option for choosing beef meat on the market is touching it. To do this, you just need to touch the beef with your finger, and immediately go away if the meat turns out to be sticky or wet. In addition, it is important that the finger-hole on the beef is immediately smoothed out, which will show the vigilant buyer its high quality. If the dent does not smooth out, then this meat is already old, and after cooking the beef will be very tough.

Choosing meat for steak

When choosing meat, the most difficult thing is to find a suitable piece for cooking a steak, even in the oven, at least on the grill, at least on the fire. Therefore, if you decide to cook this delicious dish, then it is important to remember that it is made of beef, so that in finished form it will shock everyone with its unique taste, aroma and appearance.

First of all, you should pay attention to the cut of meat, if it is perfectly even, then everything is in order with the beef, but if it resembles a ladder, then, most likely, a piece of meat was cut frozen, lost its taste, so it will cook unevenly, will lose more moisture than necessary and will be completely inedible. You also need to pay attention to the color of the beef for the steak, which should be natural, not have pale or dark spots. The pale color of beef, which is similar to pork, will absolutely not suit us, because the steak will be too fried. You should also pay attention to the thickness of the meat piece, which should vary within 3-5 cm.

Storing meat

Now that you already know how to choose good beef, it is very important to remember how to store this meat. So, after the purchase, it is very important to put the meat in the refrigerator without cutting it, and you can keep it there for three to four days. It's important to keep your beef in the refrigerator wrapped in a paper bag or waffle towel. But meat should not be wrapped in a plastic bag, nor should it be stored wrapped in a film, because this way bacteria can start in it. The maximum shelf life in a refrigerator at a temperature of 0-7 ° C is one week, and in a freezer - up to six months. However, it is highly discouraged to store meat in the freezer for a long time, because this way it will lose its taste and all its beneficial properties.

Note to the hostess

And finally, since we now know perfectly well how to choose beef and how to store it, in the end we need to remember a few more rules for handling meat, which, if strictly followed, will greatly help cooks and meat eaters.

1. The fatter the meat, the faster it will cook through completely.
2. During frying of beef, you cannot put a lot of pieces of meat in the pan, because they will all let the juice, and then the meat will not be fried, but stewed.
3. To get the meat covered with a beautiful brown crust, dry it with a paper towel before baking it on the grill, in the oven or in a pan.
4. During frying, the meat should not be turned over to the other side too quickly, let first one side be covered with a golden brown crust, and then the other.
5. It is best to defrost meat directly in the refrigerator at a temperature of +5 ° C.
6. Due to boiling and frying, it is necessary to clearly calculate the amount of purchased meat, since after boiling its weight from one kilogram will become 600 grams, and after frying - 650 grams.
7. When you fry meat, you cannot pierce it with a fork for testing, otherwise all the juice will flow out of it, and as a result, the finished dish will be tough, it will be impossible to chew it.
8. If you add tomato paste or tomatoes to a kitchen pan, then the beef will be stewed much faster.
9. Stew the meat over low heat, avoiding boiling.
10. So that the broth in which the meat is cooked is transparent and can be used for preparing the first courses, the beef should be poured with cold water.

“I always pay attention first of all to how beef is sold on the market. It is necessary that basic hygiene standards be observed: the meat should lie, for example, not on dirty cardboard boxes, but on a clean cloth. Then I look at the meat itself.

First, you have to sniff it. The beef should have a pleasant milky flavor. Spoiled meat smells bad. But they often sell old meat - not spoiled, just meat from old animals - that smells like a barn. This barn shouldn't be here either.

Secondly, the meat must be carefully examined. You can navigate by color, but you can't always guess. Shades are different - from blood red to rose red. The color depends on whether it is ripe beef or not, it is young or older, and sometimes - on the breed and on the fattening. But there are still a few one hundred percent rules. Ripe beef, for example, has a bright red color. This is because moisture comes out of the meat and in it, roughly speaking, all the meat becomes more concentrated. Another important indicator is that old meat will always be a bright dark red. More about the appearance: there can be no bloody smudges and bruises on the meat that arise from improper slaughter. And, naturally, it should not be windy.

Thirdly, the meat must be touched. It should be elastic, should not be soft and watery - if so, this indicates that the meat has been repeatedly frozen and thawed. The fibers should not fall apart: if you see this, it is a sign that the meat is stale.

The age of an animal can be determined by the color of the fat. If the fat is thick, dense, yellow and looks like fat, this means that it has been forming for a long time, the animal has managed to live a long time. The older the fat, the less fusible it is.

But if we take, for example, a tenderloin where there is no fat, then the age can be determined by its size: a large, adult animal will have a large tenderloin.

It is also worth paying attention to the fact that there are no blood clots, hematomas or any other formations in the meat that should not be in the meat. Their presence indicates the wrong slaughter - or that the animal was sick.

Many people think that fresh meat is something that has just been slaughtered and taken to the market as soon as possible. In fact, butchering a freshly slaughtered bull or cow is almost impossible. Their muscles are relaxed, like porridge, and such a carcass cannot be cut efficiently: the butcher will constantly miss, and a bunch of muscles will be spoiled in vain. After slaughter, the carcass should hang down so that the muscles become numb, and only then go to the market. All this meat, which is now in front of us on the market, comes from animals that were slaughtered, most likely a week ago, and maybe even earlier.

What we usually see on the market is meat chopped like in The Book of Delicious and Healthy Food: brisket, front, back and edges, thin and thick. In America and Europe, a different cut is common, taking into account that a significant part of the carcass can go to steaks, which can be sold for much more money.

Now about the individual parts of the mascara.

There is a layer of fat and veins in the shoulder blade. If we choose a scapula for a steak or for roast beef, then it should be marble: with thin patches of fat. You can ask the seller to make a cut: if there are no such layers there, then this meat is only suitable for baking, and even better - for cooking, stewing, or in order to put it on minced meat.

The entrecote on the bone must be carefully cut off, and the bone must be free of chips and without bone chips - all this can then get into the finished dish, and this is dangerous. The entrecote should not be thick or thin - about three to four centimeters in thickness.

Usually, they buy only a part of the ham home, the one without the bone. About a ham, you need to know that there is usually no fat on it, and if there is, then quite a bit. If you need to buy a whole ham (this is a piece weighing from three to five kilograms), then again you need to make sure that the bone does not have sharp chips and bone chips.

The neck is boneless and boneless. If the neck is on the bone, then you can check its quality as follows: you need to take the neck by the bone and raise it - the meat should be dense and collected, it should not dangle loosely, this is an indicator of staleness.

When choosing a brisket, there are no special criteria other than freshness. When the brisket is sold in one large piece, then a thick layer of fat is attached to it, and if you do not want to buy it, but want to buy only meat, then look for the piece from which the fat has already been removed. It will most likely be slightly more expensive. If you are using a chopped brisket, then the fat on the sides should be 3-4 millimeters wide. A thicker layer means that the animal was fed grain or that it is an older animal (in this case, the fat will also be yellowish).

Tenderloin is a thin oblong piece of meat, thicker at the base, thinner at the end, no more than half a meter in length. Homogeneous meat without veins, except for the one that covers the top of the tenderloin. It is easy to get rid of it: you need to pry it off with a sharp knife and carefully remove it, moving the knife blade parallel to the vein. Often the tenderloin is sold already peeled, but then it costs more.

It's not uncommon to find a thick and thin edge on the market. You cannot confuse them. The thick edge is the ribeye, the dorsal cut that runs from the 6th to the 12th rib. It has two main muscles - spinalis and longissimus, and if you look at a piece cut from this cut from above, you can see how one muscle overlaps the other. And the thin edge is the lumbar part, a thin flat single-muscle piece of meat with a light layer of fat on top.

Cheeks used to be fed to dogs, and recently this part of the carcass has become, as they say, fashionable. Very often, the cheeks are sold together with the internal oral cavity, which is unsuitable for eating, so it is better to buy an already completely cut off cheek, it looks like a dense muscle.

When choosing a tail, you need to look at its thickness: it should be large in diameter and dense. The most valuable thing in the tail is the thick vertebra, which is adjacent to the body, there is the most meat. There is no need to take a tail that is too thin, little will come of it. You also need to know that there is a lot of fat in oxtail, and little in cow tails, but they are ideal for broth.

One of my favorite parts of the mascara is the leg. You can ask the butcher to cut it in half so that the gelatin comes out of it better during cooking and so that the leg gives more flavor. This part should be the freshest - soft, shiny and not windy, moisture should appear on the cut, and the bone part should be removed from the hoof.

If the meat should lie down before selling and cooking, then the offal should be fresh, the fresher the better. Freshness can be determined by traces of blood, gloss and moisture.

The liver and spleen should be shiny and have a pleasant milky smell. It is also worth paying attention to the integrity of the pieces - so that there are no breaks (this is generally important for all giblets). There is nothing more to look out for.

When choosing a light, you need to look closely at its color. It should be pale pink with bloody capillaries and firm to the touch.

You should not expect a milky smell from the buds - make sure they are shiny, that is, fresh.

When choosing a language, you also need to focus on humidity. The tongue is covered with dense skin, the freshness of the product can be judged by the cut. The color of the tongue depends on the breed, you should not pay attention to this.

The heart is a strained muscle that works very hard, performing the same movement. It is easy to choose a heart - if it is bloody, it means that it is very fresh and, more recently, pumped blood.

The udder should be shiny, firm - but also loose. It will take a very long time to cook. Even after boiling, the texture remains firm with a strong milky scent. Yet this is not meat, but a large mammary gland.

The rumen is the largest part of a cow's stomach. Before selling it, it is boiled in boiling water and cleaned with brushes - but nevertheless, a strong specific smell remains all the same. Make sure it is well cleaned and that its mesh is white and translucent.

Bovine eggs are sold in the market uncut. When buying, again, you need to look at the moisture - fresh testicles should be shiny. They must be cleaned carefully: make a thin longitudinal cut and remove the film, which is completely unsuitable for human consumption. Inside the egg, light flesh will be found, in which all the value of this product is. It is not at all like meat - soft flesh that is usually quickly fried without pre-processing.

In the carcass, bones start to deteriorate most quickly, so they should be as fresh as possible. A large bone, which chefs call a dumbbell, is ideal for broths. It must be chopped up so that during cooking the bone marrow comes out of it, which will make the broth richer. The end parts of the bone, that is, the knees, are called moto skis. They also need to be cut into four parts so that the brain comes out. It takes a long time to cook such a bone, about six hours. After the butcher has cut the bone, look at the saw cut - the brain should be wet, blood may appear slightly, it should be yellow or white in color. You can also ask to cut such a bone into washers - they are good to bake with parsley and garlic.

The most delicious product in a cow is brains: they are fat, soft, tender. It's almost impossible to buy them just like that, they (like, by the way, udders) must be ordered on the market in a few days - from trusted sellers. "