intent is to get the meat up to a specific final temperature
and then serve it, as opposed to slow-cooking methods like
braising, which require you to hold meat at a given
temperature long enough that connective tissues can break
down. Because of this, cuts used for roasts and steaks must
come from parts of the cow that are relatively tender to
begin with. In many cases, the cuts of beef used for roasts
and steaks overlap. For instance, a rib-eye or Delmonico
steak is essentially simply a single-bone rib roast, and a
tenderloin steak or filet mignon is a steak-sized slice of a
tenderloin roast or Chatêaubriand.
The Four High-End Steaks You Should Know
Q: I’m looking to buy some good steak. What do I need to
know?
As mentioned above, the difference between a steak and
roast essentially comes down to size. Any good roast can be
cut into individual steaks. While cheaper cuts like sirloin,
flank, and skirt, and cheffy cuts like hanger and flatiron, are
becoming increasingly popular and available these days, the
kings of the steak house are still those cuts that come from
the longissimus dorsi and the psoas major muscles. The
longissimus dorsi are a pair of long, tender muscles that run
down either side of the spine of the steer, outside the ribs, all
the way from the neck to the hip. The psoas major are a pair
of shorter muscles that start about two-thirds of the way
down the steer’s spine and run on the opposite side of the
ribs to the longissimus—the inside. Commonly referred to as
the filet mignon or tenderloin, the psoas major are by far the
tenderest meat on the steer. That, coupled with their small