Our Own Grass Fed Beef - Cooking Steak (Part 4)

This is the fourth segment in an on-going series we're doing after we butchered one of our grass fed Angus steers.  Grass fed beef is all the rage right now and it is primarily driven because of health issues.  As you are aware, there are good fats and bad fats.  Grassfed beef is high in all of the fats that are good for you (Omega-3 fat) and low in all of the fats that have been linked to cause health problems.  According to This Link these important health considerations underscore the reason to eat grass fed:

When we switch from grainfed to grassfed meat, then, we are simply returning to the diet of our long-ago ancestors, the diet that is most in harmony with our physiology. Every cell and every system of our bodies will function better when we eat products from animals raised on grass.

Grass-fed beef is naturally leaner than grain-fed beef.

Omega 3s in beef that feed on grass is 7% of the total fat content, compared to 1% in grain-only fed beef.

Grass-fed beef has the recommended ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 fats (3:1.)

Grass-fed beef is loaded with other natural minerals and vitamins, plus it's a great source of CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) a fat that reduces the risk of cancer, obesity, diabetes, and a number of immune disorders.

Beef, in its natural grass-fed state, is a health food of the highest order. 

Before we jump into today's discussion, here are links to the previous 3 posts in the serious, in the event you missed them:

Grassfed Beef - Part 1
Grassfed Beef - Part 2
Grassfed Beef - Part 3

So we've established that we want to eat grass fed beef, so what are the differences? We have eaten the hamburger meat and notice that the meat is leaner and more flavorful.  What about other cuts, like steak?  We're going to find out right now.

Since the meat has all been frozen, we thawed out a couple of steaks for supper tonight:

We decided to try a T-bone and a sirloin steak.  Now the link below has some great tips that educated us regarding cooking it.  To be honest, it is sort of a different product than the grain fed beef you purchase in the supermarket.

Tips for Cooking Grassfed

The link above will tell you that grass fed beef is very low in fat.  Surprisingly, the steak from our steer had a nice amount of fat that provided great flavor.  We also learned that you should tenderize your steaks using a Jaccard Meat tenderizer.  Of course, we didn't have that gizmo so we used the next best thing - a Pampered Chef Hold n Slice.  I think it is really used for holding vegetables while you slice them.  It also worked well to tenderize the steaks:

Tricia simply poked the steak full of holes to tenderize both steaks.  Simple & Easy.

Tenderizing the steaks

You should marinate your steaks prior to cooking.  We used part acid, part oil, and part herbs/flavoring.  Tricia used apple cider vinegar and lemon juice for the acid and olive oil.  Then she added Worcestershire sauce, minced garlic, yellow mustard and our home made Tabasco sauce.  She shook it all up in a storage bag and allowed the steaks to marinate all day long in the fridge. 

Marinating the steaks

You should always bring your meat to room temperature prior to cooking.  Grass fed beef cooks very quickly.  In fact, it requires 30% less cooking time.  We learned that you should reduce the cooking temperature by 50 degrees.  Sear each side over high heat to seal in the juices and then turn down your fire to medium or low heat to finish, being careful not to overcook.  Since we're new at grass-fed cooking, we actually under-cooked ours and had to put it back in the skillet for a minute, but that's all part of the learning process and we'll have it down for next time.  I hate to admit to you that I don't have a photo of the finished product.  We ate it all quickly and before we knew it, the only thing left was a few bones for the dogs!

Next we cooked a shoulder steak.  We seared it on both sides and then added it to a pot with a roux that was made along with vegetables and water and some of our dehydrated tomatoes and let it cook between 2 and 3 hours.  Delicious!!

I hate to admit to you (again) that I don't have a photo of the finished product. We've got to get better at getting pictures of the finished product.  Once it is done, we're ready to eat!  We are really enjoying our grass fed beef and highly recommend it.

We'll have at least one more segment in this series as we're working on yet another product that we're able to make 

Our Own Grass Fed Beef - Organ Meats (Part 1)

We have cattle at our farm that roam around on a number of acres eating grass. They are given no hormones or antibiotics.  The only medicine that they get is Ivermectin once per year.  Ivermectin is an anti-parasitic used to combat worms. "Wormy" cattle don't gain weight and are sickly.  For the longest time, we've had a cattle round-up each year and culled older cows, cows that have a bad habit of getting out of the fence, and bull calves from the herd.  We bring them to the Livestock Auction and split the proceeds.

We've never brought any of these animals to the slaughterhouse and consumed the grass fed beef ourselves.  We have always gone to the grocery store and purchased our beef.  Because of rising beef prices, to be honest, we eat mainly our home-grown chickens.  We wanted to change that this year. We had a round-up and sent some to the auction, but we kept one nice steer for ourselves.

After a couple of attempts, my Dad got this big steer into the trailer and we accompanied him to deliver the steer to Elliott's Slaughterhouse & Meat Market in Morse, Louisiana.  Rural Louisiana used to boast a slaughterhouse in almost every town.  Now that's not the case and they are few and far between.  The staff at Elliott's are knowledgeable and patient and helped us go through the 'Cut Sheet' to determine the different types of cuts, thickness, length of aging, etc.  It was a learning experience.

Grass Fed Angus Steer

We opted for a two week dry aging process.  Dry aging causes the moisture to evaporate from the meat, resulting in shrinkage, but it also causes enzymes in the meat to begin breaking down the connective tissue of the meat, resulting in tender meat.  One thing that we learned that might seem too basic to mention is that the entire animal is yours.  Anything you leave with the butcher is essentially money you are leaving on the table.  As a result, we asked for, not all, but most of the organ meats, fat and bones.  We'll eat the the majority of organ meats, use the fat for making soap and make beef stock with the bones.  Some of it will be fed to the dogs.

The organs won't last during the two week aging process, so Tricia was called to go pick them up once the animal was slaughtered.  She came back with an ice chest containing a big bag of  the offal all iced down.

Offal

As we opened the bag, we realized that the evening was going to be a long one.  All of the offal must be washed, some of it must be cut up or sliced and then bagged.

A Grab Bag of mystery meat

The first item out of the bag was the tongue.  Beef tongue is a delicacy that we've not eaten, but we're going to shortly as it is very common in Tricia's heritage (Mexican) as well as mine (Cajun).  We're using the 'nose to tail' technique of using almost every part of the animal except the 'Moo!' and the tongue starts at the nose.  Later we'll chronicle cleaning and cooking the tongue.

Beef Tongue

Here is the heart of the steer.  It was huge.  Frequently, people grind up the heart with the ground beef.  Since we couldn't do this, we sliced the lean heart muscle into into steaks to freeze.  It was a very interesting biology lesson seeing the ventricles, atrium, and valves.

Beef Heart

The biggest surprise of all was how extremely large the liver was.  I cut away some of the hard fat, and prepared to cut it up for freezing into individual meal-sized portions.  We had a 'dog food' stack of trimmings and a 'fat for soap' stack of trimmings.

Beef Liver

I sliced the liver into thin serving-sized portions.  I really like chicken livers; however, in the past, I've had to force myself to eat calf liver and didn't really enjoy the taste.  Maybe we'll try some new recipes.  All the organ meats are supposed to be really good for you.

What am I?  Chopped Liver?

Here is the remaining contents of the offal bag.  Starting at the 12 o'clock position and the middle of the photo below, we have the beef kidneys.  Just to the right of that are the sweetbreads.  From the 1 o'clock position all the way to the 6 o'clock position is the tail.  Remember the tongue to tail comment?  We'll use this to make ox tail stew.  Finally the long organ stretching from the 8 o'clock position back up to the 12 o'clock position is called beef melt.  It is actually the pancreas of the steer. We sliced this up and will use it for crab bait when we go crabbing this summer.

Remaining Offal

By the time we were finished, we truly had a mess on the island, sink and floor.  It required some serious clean-up.

Finally made it to the bottom of the bag!

We labeled all of the bags and froze them for use later.  In a couple of weeks, the dry aging of our beef will be complete and we'll go pick up the cut and packaged ground meat, steaks, and roasts. We'll share Part II of this post with you at that time.  We can't wait to try it.  Grass fed beef is supposed to be much leaner than corn-fed/finished, so there are supposedly different cooking techniques that you use when cooking it that we will have to learn.