The FOOD LAB’s Complete Guide TO BEEF STEAKS I’ve cooked a lot of beef in my life, from steak for two to entire 25-pound Prime-grade, grass-fed, dry-aged, grainfinished, well-marbled 7-rib racks Beautiful hunks of meat that have left my apartment permanently perfumed with the sweet, musky scent of crisp beef fat and my mind permanently stained with the insatiable desire to taste that beef again This is not an altogether unpleasant state of affairs to be in in my line of work But wait—Prime-grade, grain-finished, marbled? What all these terms mean? you cry And, more important, Why should I care? Here are the answers to every question you’ve ever had or might ever have about beef roasts and steaks Q: What exactly are the differences between a roast and steak? Do they come from different parts of the cow? Put most simply, a roast is a large piece of meat—generally at least 2 inches thick—that is cooked in the oven and sliced before serving A steak is a thinner piece of meat—2 inches thick or under—intended to be cooked and served as is Practically speaking, there’s not much difference between the two other than size Both roasts and steaks are cooked via fast-cooking methods That is, when cooking them, the 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 th e 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 ... 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,... becoming increasingly popular and available these days, the kings of the steak house are still those cuts that come from th e longissimus dorsi and the psoas major muscles The longissimus dorsi are a pair of long, tender muscles that run