Beef

Whether you want to cook a thick, juicy cheeseburger or a fancy rib roast, you need to know which cut is the best to buy A good understanding of how a steer—a castrated bull—is put together helps you to purchase the right cut for the cooking method, a situation made difficult by the fact that naming conventions differ around the country and can differ even within the same city.

The basic cuts, similar to the primal cuts used by butchers and wholesalers, are the shoulder, known as the chuck; the rib, which includes part of the shoulder, rib steaks, and rib roasts; the loin, which is the source of strip steaks, shell steaks, the tenderloin, and porterhouse steaks; the sirloin, which is the continuation of the muscles on the back that connect to the leg and the rump; and the leg, which includes the bottom and top round, the eye of the round, and the shank.