How to Choose the Best Steak

A delicious steak is not only about having excellent culinary skills, but also the right ingredients. Even if you follow all the rules and use different cooking tricks, the result may disappoint you if the meat cut you chose is not good enough.

5-Minute Crafts would like to tell you about how to choose the best steak.

Marbling

Marbling is a key factor in determining the quality of a steak. Experts judge the condition of a piece of steak primarily by its marbling. A marbled steak is a steak that has a lot of intramuscular fat. It makes a steak juicy and flavorful. If there is not enough fat inside the steak, you’ll end up with a dry and tough piece of meat.

A steak may have a different amount of fat, but the best steak is believed to have middle marbling. It’s important to ensure that the fat is evenly distributed throughout the piece. Otherwise, there is a risk that one part of the steak will be dry, and the other one, too fatty.

Color

A fresh steak tends to have a bright red color. When a freshly cut surface is exposed to oxygen, myoglobin makes red meat acquire a bright red color. Within a day’s time, the color can change from red to brownish red, and there is nothing wrong with that. The marbling should be white or creamy. There should be no brown spots in the fat or on the edges of the steak.

Thickness

A piece of meat that’s too thin is difficult to cook well because if you get distracted for just a minute, you may burn your dinner. Therefore, it’s important to choose a steak that is thick enough. It should be at least 1 inch thick. It will be much more difficult to spoil it this way.

Type

Different meat cuts taste differently. There is no right or wrong here — you can just choose the type of steak that you like best.

• The strip steak (New York strip) is a cut from the short loin. This muscle does little work, so it is very tender. This is a relatively inexpensive type of steak.
• T-bone is a classic steak, perhaps one of the most recognizable in the world due to its T-bone shape. It combines a tender sirloin on one side of the bone and an eye fillet on the other, and it’s perfect for those who want to get everything at once.
• Filet mignon is one of the most expensive types of steak. The lack of marbling usually tends to result in a steak that has less flavor than other cuts, but it is very tender. Thanks to its composition, filet mignon goes well with butter or bacon.
• Ribeye steak is cut from the ribs. The more expensive option has bones, and the cheaper one doesn’t. As a rule, these steaks have a pronounced marbling, which makes them very juicy, especially when grilled.