If you’re spending any time at all grilling or barbecuing meat, you’ll want to take this quiz on meats. It is full of meat facts all men should know and may give you some new ideas that increase the zesty and passionate flavors in your next meals.
True or false 1. The best meat for stew is stew meat.
True or false 2. To find a good quality pork chop, look for marbling within the meat.
True or false 3. If pork is two toned, it means there is something wrong with it.
True or false 4. If you cook one rib roast at 275 degrees and another at 400 degrees in’ the same oven at different times until they are cooked medium done, the’ roast cooked at the higher temperature will have the greater yield because’ it cooked in less time.
True or false 5. Since beef contains enough fat, there’s never a reason to use butter’ when cooking it.
True or false 6. If you turn a meat with a fork, you’ll lose all the juices during cooking.
True or false 7. Salting meat before you cook it will result in less moisture in the meat.
True or false 8. When grilling a steak, you should only turn it once. Otherwise, it will’ end up being dry.
True or false 9. An average-sized cow yields about 33 one-inch steaks. This is about’ 20% of the carcass.
True or false 10. The most tender steaks come from only the sirloin area.
- False. Stew meat usually consists of scraps too small to be steaks. These scraps are from all parts of the cow. Your best bet for stew meat is to use a pot roast and cut it up into bite-sized chunks. Other good choices for stew meat are a rump roast, cross rib, chuck roast or bottom round.
- True. Without marbling, pork will be dry. Too much marbling, however, will not be a good sign either; look for a happy medium.
- False. It’s natural for some muscles of the pig to be darker than others. The tenderloin is almost always darker in color than the loin on top of the T-bone. Look for a nice pink-gray color on the top loin cuts.
- False. In one study, the percentage of weight lost for the roast cooked at 275 degrees was 12.1 while the roast cooked at 400 degrees was 29.1. This is pretty significant and can result in money lost out of your food budget.
- False. Adding a teaspoon of butter to the top of a steak sizzling on the plate puts flavor back into lean beef and adds a little flavor to choice cuts as well. Seasoning the butter with herbs beforehand adds even more flavor to the meat.
- False. Some meat juices may be lost, but the juices are found throughout the meat, not just in one location.
- False. Unless you’re packing several pounds of salt around the meat and giving it time to dry out, flavoring your meat with salt before cooking it won’t do anything except make it taste a little better.
- Questionable. Some experts say that you should only turn the meat once during cooking while others say turn it as often as you wish. Test this one for yourself and decide what your answer is from experience.
- True.
- False. Tender steaks are also from the short loin and the rib section. The short loin yields porterhouse steaks, t-bone steaks and also club steaks.
How did you do on the meat facts all men should know? A score of 7 or more is a great score, 5 to 6 is good, and less than 5 means it’s time to read more about meats!
