S6 E20 : Part 2 - Different Cuts of Meat Explained, with Charlotte Wasylik from Chatsworth Farm

We had so much to talk about with Charlotte Wasylik from Chatsworth Farm, we split it into two episodes! Part I is also available now!

This week we're talking about one of the most confusing things for home cooks, cuts of meat:

- what they're called (why are there so many names for the same thing??)

- why the names don't always mean what we think they mean

- and how that can leave even the most confident home cook feeling unsure about what to order from the farmer or butcher. 

To help us make sense of it all, we're joined once again by Charlotte Wasylik from Chatsworth Farm, who brings deep expertise from the producer side of the food system. She explains that names given to cuts of meat often vary by region, so if you're not finding what a recipe calls for, there may be a different name for it -- you just have to ask! Sometimes it helps to explain what you want to cook in order for the farmer to guide you to cuts that will work the best. And understanding that, an unusual cut doesn't have to be intimidating when you know what to do with it.  

Be sure to listen to part I of this conversation if you haven't yet. And please check out Chatsworth Farm for more information. www.chatsworthfarm.ca

 

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Transcript

Heather (00:11)
Hello everyone. This is part two of a special two-part episode with our guest Charlotte Wasilic from Chatsworth Farm. If you haven't listened to part one, you can tune in anytime. It's out now

Erin W (00:23)
Enjoy a further deep dive into cuts of meat and how to cook them. We hope you enjoy all the information that Charlotte is providing to us home cooks.

Charlotte (00:37)
When you're looking at the pork shoulder, you have the pork butt. That's the upper part of the shoulder. And that's also confusing because you think butt, rear, pork butt comes from the shoulder of the animal. And that's the upper part of the shoulder. And then you have the picnic shoulder, which is the lower part of the shoulder. And as you get into smaller animals, like with pigs and lambs, the further breakdown of those

Erin W (00:41)
Mm-hmm.

Charlotte (01:03)
Crimals reduce because you're you're dealing with something so small in a lamb for example it is just the lamb shoulder now you can leave it as a roast or you can cut it into steaks and And that's really it if you want to get more finicky about it You could but you're gonna be left with tiny little cuts like that are the size of a mandarin orange So it's not worth it

but in pork you've got your upper shoulder and your bottom shoulder, your butt and your picnic you can get those cut into steaks as well so that would be your your blade steak or your blade arm chop in the beef equivalent and I think it's a really fantastic steak and I think it's a little bit more tender than say what a beef equivalent would be and what we do with the pork shoulder steak

is I'll take them, I'll butterfly them, and then I'll pound them out a little bit to make them thinner. I'll coat them in egg...

breadcrumbs and then we'll fry them so we'll have kind of a venuschnitzel type situation or cutlets and those are so good because when you make cutlets out of say the loin which is very very lean you're sometimes missing the juiciness it's very easy to overcook them they're a little bit more dry so you

Erin W (02:04)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Charlotte (02:19)
would have to cook the live-in daylight out of something from the pork shoulder for it to be dry because it's got all that beautiful fat. So it gives you something that's just so juicy. It's so tender. It's just so fun to eat. And that's one of the things that we really like to make with pork shoulder steaks. then pulled pork is just your classic. And you can't go wrong with that when you have that cut as a roast.

Heather (02:44)
about a chop? Like, is a chop pork chop different than a, like, I honestly don't think I've ever had a pork steak. I never think of steak with pork. ⁓ okay.

Charlotte (02:52)
They're the same things. It's

just how you want to call them. With lamb, you've got the same kind of thing as well. You've got your lamb chops, and then the cuts from the shoulder or the leg, we call them lamb steaks. their chops and steaks mean the same thing, essentially. They're thinner.

Heather (03:00)
Okay.

Okay.

Charlotte (03:15)
just in terms of not as thick as a roast. And they're usually something that you can cook on the barbecue or in a pan really quickly. So that would be my definition of what a chop and a steak is.

We're we love them. They're one of our favorites.

Erin W (03:31)
So the process of...

Heather (03:31)
Yum.

Erin W (03:33)
flattening or pounding the meat there. What is the best cut to use that on? Is that something that's going to help those tougher cuts or is it meant to just thin it out for cooking time so that you can get that quick cook?

Charlotte (03:47)
Mm-hmm.

For

me, it's really just thinning it out for the faster cooking time.

Heather (03:53)
What about marinating? Sometimes you see on the package in the store, it will say a marinating steak

Charlotte (04:01)
those can be steaks that are cuts that are a little bit more bold. So your, your flank steak is a really great marinating steak, something that can just really hold up to a lot of flavor. And sometimes it's steaks that are a little bit leaner. So they need a little bit more flavoring to help give them a boost of flavor.

Sirloin is personally it's not one of my favorites because for me it's too lean it doesn't have enough fat and it can be a really good marinating steak especially if you're wanting to do a stir-fry.

It's boneless. It doesn't have much intermuscular fat at all. So when you cut it up, you're getting really even, really consistent pieces of strips of meat. So it can hold up to really robust flavors. Again, flat iron skirt steak. Those are all really good steaks that you can marinate

We had flank steak the other night, we marinated it, we got this really nice recipe from Serious Eats. It's got a blended marinade and then you let it sit in the fridge overnight and then you kind of you barbecue it and just the aroma that it gave the steak was fantastic.

And flank steak is a steak that generally people do find it to be a little tougher, but we cut it up, we ate it and was like, this is so tender. So it does all also depend on the beef and the animal itself, because you are going to have animals that can be a little tougher. You can have animals that are a little bit more tender. And we had a customer who regularly orders flank steaks as well. And she mentioned that too, where she said, flank steaks always get this bad rap for being tough. But she said she had one of ours.

it was nice and tender. So that can be an aspect of your cook as well.

Heather (05:50)
And what influences that in the animal? Is it the level of activity? Is it what they eat?

Charlotte (05:54)
it can be.

The level of activity is probably always going to be the same and that's a that's a normal aspect of the animal stress can have a huge impact on the animals tenderness and also you have the age so generally animals that are processed are going to be between your year old and your two-year-old stage, so that's kind of the

baseline for all of those animals that get processed. You can have animals that are older and as just like humans, as we age, we start to see a decrease in our fat deposits. We get a little bit more wrinkly and all the things that come with aging that happens to animals as well. And it can kind of degrade the meat and it can just create a little bit more toughness in that overall carcass.

So those are some of the things that can happen. But also it's really important that you think about how you're cooking it because there have been so many instances where someone might say, this cut is tough. And you ask them how they cook it and just the cook is not.

what it should be

so something isn't quite matching up there's one odd odd ball out and so you think about how they were cooking it how they're they're working with that meat so those are really key things to think about making sure that you're respecting what that cut can and cannot do

Erin W (07:28)
Okay, so then just generally as an overview on cuts of meat for us that are cooking it at home, what are some of those?

What are some of those guidelines that we want to follow and that we want to adjust our cooking for for different cuts?

Charlotte (07:47)
Just know your cuts. And if you are unsure about them, look up some reputable sites. Serious Eats, I think is an excellent source if you're looking for really flawless recipes and they go into the why and that's their tagline. I don't wanna butcher it, but I think it's good cooks know how.

great cooks know why. And that's really important, especially when you're dealing with meat is understanding the nuances of all the different cuts. If you have library access, there's some really great books.

⁓ this book is really great. It's called meat by Patrick, LaFrieda and or Pat LaFrieda. And this book is excellent because it breaks it down into

Heather (08:38)
Yeah, that's handy.

Charlotte (08:38)
all of the different

locations of where all of those cuts are, which is so great. And they've got a beef one. So having books like this, I think if you're really serious about cooking and really getting into the nitty gritty about meat,

Erin W (08:43)
Right.

Heather (08:47)
Mm-hmm.

Charlotte (08:57)
is getting a book like this because it's its own little bible and you really can't get that from lot of cookbooks that are standalone when they're just talking about say a certain recipe so having something like this really helps you dive into the cuts a little bit more.

Erin W (09:15)
You almost need like a textbook rather than a cookbook.

Charlotte (09:19)
This kind of is, this is kind of a textbook, but it's also got recipes. So then this is your beef, Anima.

Erin W (09:23)
Yeah, yeah.

Heather (09:24)
Mmm.

that looks like a fantastic resource for anybody at home who's really wanting to get into it. Right. And I'm thinking back to when we've done episodes with ⁓ barbecue people who specialize in barbecue and they're like competitors. go to these barbecue competitions and things. and they really have studied. They know the cut. They know the marinade. know the rub. They know the

Erin W (09:30)
Yeah.

Charlotte (09:30)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's.

Okay.

Erin W (09:43)
yeah.

Charlotte (09:47)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (09:51)
treatment. They know exactly the end product they're going for because they're very serious about it and it's really cool to see that you can learn all of that yourself.

Charlotte (09:52)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Erin W (09:56)
Mm-hmm.

Charlotte (10:01)
Yeah, it's, it's a crazy, it's a crazy world.

But it's a really great book.

I was kind of living off of this as we were putting the website together to just make sure I was getting all of the all of the info that I could and then putting it into our own words and making sure that it made sense for our region and that home cooks could appreciate. ⁓

Erin W (10:25)
great.

Heather (10:26)
So that's one key takeaway from today, think is like, find out what the names are in your region. We have listeners across Canada and the US and internationally. So wherever you happen to be, if some of the cuts that Charlotte's talking about are unfamiliar to you, ⁓ just a little bit of research could tell you maybe what they're called in your area, and then you'll have a bit better understanding of what you're looking for.

Erin W (10:43)
Mm-hmm.

Charlotte (10:53)
Yeah. And even if you're not able to find it out that way, get a picture. We're so blessed with so many resources online of pictures of what the cuts are. So get a picture of the, of the raw ingredient. And if you're going to your butcher or your farm, say, this is what I'm looking for. Even if you don't know the name, you could maybe try a reverse Google search, but sometimes that might not be the best. And it might give you some conflicting information, but just get that picture and send that to

Heather (11:12)
Mmm.

Charlotte (11:22)
to the farmer or the butcher and tell them this is what I'm looking for and then say I would like it either bone in or boneless because those can also garner different names for your different cuts. ⁓ The rib section of the beef animal is a great one. You have your prime rib roast, you have your rib eye, your rib steak, your tomahawk and your cowboy cut. So you've got five different cuts of meat.

Erin W (11:35)
rates.

Charlotte (11:52)
they are all the same muscle groups and what makes them different is one is a roast and again that can be bone in or boneless one is the rest are steaks but one of those steaks is boneless completely one of those steaks just has the bone that goes to the edge of the steak so it's flush with where the meat ends the cowboy cut

the bone extends a little bit. So it kind of has this little cute little handle, almost like the kind of like a frying pan handle in a way. So you've got a little bit of a presentation wow factor. And then you have your tomahawk, which is that same steak again, but with the entire rib bone left on that's about, I don't know, eight or nine inches long. So you've got one.

Erin W (12:34)
Mmm.

Charlotte (12:39)
cut we'll call it but five different ways that it can be presented kind of in a in a base form and that confuses so many people so knowing what you're looking for and for example like i don't get tomahawk steaks cut because

They're difficult to wrap for our butchers. They're difficult for me to kind of store in the freezer. They're difficult to barbecue. Most people do not have a plate that's big enough for that. And then you're also, you're paying for almost a pound of bone that's just there to look pretty. So if you're wanting a cut that has the pizzazz, you want the deliciousness of the rib.

Erin W (13:02)
Yeah.

Heather (13:06)
Yes. ⁓

Hmm.

Charlotte (13:21)
⁓ primal taste, go for the cowboy cut because you're getting you're getting the exact same as you would on a tomahawk as you do a ribeye as you do a rib steak but you just get that tiny little bit of extra bone that's practically nothing so it looks a little bit fancier but you're not paying for as much and it's so much easier to just work with ⁓ when you're preparing it on the in the kitchen or on the grill.

Erin W (13:45)
Yeah, right.

Heather (13:45)
so many things

to think about. Now what if I just what if as a customer I came to and just said here are like five things that I want to cook I mean that is that asking a lot of your farmer to have to then figure out what cut goes into a recipe or are you like yeah I know the things that will work.

Charlotte (14:07)
It

can depend on your farmer because for me, I really love to cook. I really like to cook a whole host of dishes from across the globe. I've cooked a very tiny fraction of all the fantastic dishes that exist in the world, but I do feel I'm quite familiar and up to speed on what dishes warrant what cuts.

let's say you say you want to make a tajine say you want to make something that's kind of marinated that you can slice really nicely maybe for tacos or fajitas or something say you're wanting to make

a roast that's just a nice little pot a nice oven roast

for a Sunday meal and then you're wanting to make something that's really hearty and cozy and kind of soupy, stewy kind of situation. So for the tajine, I know that it needs to be something that can withstand a little bit low and slow cooking because that's how you develop the flavors for the tajine. And that's where I would say you need something from the lamb shoulder. You could use leg of lamb, but leg of lamb is a little bit more tender.

I would just cook that itself as that maybe that could be your Sunday roast. It's a beautiful Sunday roast or you could use a cut of beef. But for that lamb tajine you want some intramuscular fat that's going through there. It can have that connective tissue so it can be a tougher cut because you're going to be cooking this down and all of that connective tissue is going to break down and infuse into your tajine a little bit more so it just adds to the flavor.

And then for that kind of cozy, stewy meal, maybe you want to do pork. And so you can do a pork, a pork cider. My French is not very good, but that cut, could use the pork shoulder. I get our butchers to cut our pork shoulder into little cubes or stew pieces as well. And again, that's the shoulder. It's got a lot of intramuscular fat, so it'll break down really nicely.

and that's really cozy as well. mean the tagine is cozy too, but you could also use beef shanks. And when people are saying, oh, I'm really looking for short ribs and maybe I don't have short ribs, beef shanks are a great alternative because they're, they're both tough cuts and they both need low and slow and the pork.

shanks even though they don't have as much intramuscular fat running through the actual meat itself. It's got the bone in the middle with the marrow so that adds to the unctuous flavors and just all the umami of the dish. And then for your marinated thing, your flank steak, your skirt steak, things that can really hold up to bold flavors.

They typically have a loose grain, but they also might have a little bit of a tighter grain so that that marinade can really infuse into that meat. They're kind of classically a little bit more tough so that when you are cooking them in a way, they're able to hold up to that. You're not being as delicate as say you would a strip loin or a ribeye. So it really depends on your farmer

I like to cook beef tongue all the time. It's one of my favorites. A lot of people don't really like it just because it's tongue. We're just a little bit turned off by that. However, it is a cut that it's tough. It's super fatty. Like it's a really, really fatty cut, but

You can't eat a lot of it because it's just so rich. It's like eating triple chocolate cake all at once. You just have one bite. You're like, gosh, I don't need another bite. So thinking about a cut like that, I've read recipes that suggest once you've cooked your tongue, if you've braised it for a long time,

take some of that and then fry it so that you're adding some texture you're adding some crispiness so that that richness kind of cuts itself a little bit and then add all those really fresh ingredients your cilantro your pico de gallo whatever you're adding in there to help balance the the ratio of the fat so

I think that's probably the best suggestion is look for a farm that can help you in that respect. And if you are looking for cuts that are a little bit more extraordinary or out there are hard to find. Not every farm offers that because their butchers don't always give them that option. it costs me more to have my butchers cut the

Heather (18:23)
Mm-hmm.

Charlotte (18:38)
oyster steak, the Denver steak, the cheeks, I get charged a little bit more because it takes some extra time. So that can be a barrier for some farms,

Think about how that relationship works with your farmer.

Heather (18:51)
Yeah, well, we all need a farmer like Charlotte. I was gonna say on speed dial, how old am I?

Erin W (18:55)
Indeed.

Charlotte (18:57)
⁓

I literally do sometimes. have customers who text me I got to the other night who said they were cooking their last package of ground beef or some people will they will they I Clearly am on speed dial for some people so that's not far from the truth

Heather (19:09)
You

Yeah, I mean, I can see the value and I know people who have a favorite butcher shop that they go to because the butcher has great suggestions or they go in and say, I want to cook this and they know what to choose. So ⁓ it's all about those relationships and getting to know the person that's producing or providing that product. And I mean, there's a level of trust. There's a level of

Charlotte (19:22)
of course. Yeah.

Erin W (19:25)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Charlotte (19:37)
Mm-hmm.

Heather (19:38)
familiarity and comfort in knowing you're getting quality when you know the producers. So all for that. think that's great. Is there anything we need to know? We talked a lot about the big animals. Is there anything to know about chicken or poultry in general?

Charlotte (19:53)
We haven't sold chicken in a long time, but I would say for the most part when you are working with poultry, you're not working with as many say pieces. You've got your legs, you've got your wings, you've got your breasts, you've got your back. So a lot of those are very, very familiar. I think it's a lot easier to visualize because the parts of the animal

Heather (20:04)
Yes,

Charlotte (20:16)
in life are the same names of the parts of the animal when they're on your kitchen counter. And that makes it a lot easier because you can see, okay, like this is the wing. I, there's no confusing that these are the legs. There's no confusing that. So that can make, that can make poultry so much easier and approachable. And I'll sometimes like to use that example when people say, ⁓

Erin W (20:23)
you

Heather (20:29)
Yeah.

Erin W (20:30)
Hahaha! ⁓

Charlotte (20:41)
They get maybe a little bit taken aback by seeing a whole carcass of a beef or lamb or a pork. And I say, you see this all the time in your grocery store, like your little freezer shelves, like it's staring you in the face. But for beef and pork and lamb, it's just so much bigger. So it's a little bit more impactful and people aren't accustomed to seeing that as much. But I think lamb is a great starting point to almost learning those.

Erin W (20:59)
Mm-hmm.

Charlotte (21:09)
primals because lamb again doesn't really get broken down into primals just because it's so small but when it comes to the the animal itself as you work through the body you can have like the lamb neck steaks they're called neck steaks so it's like they're from the neck very easy lamb shoulder roast or lamb shoulder steaks that's pretty much how far it gets broken down so it's like that's easy they're from the shoulder

but then you get into the middle section can be a little bit more confusing because people don't know where the loin is versus the ribs. So that can be a little bit more challenging, but then you have your leg of lamb. However, when we look at a sheep and we think about legs, we know that they have four.

but the shoulders are called the shoulders and the back legs are called the leg of lamb. So when you get leg of lamb, those are coming from the back legs. Same thing within pork. Your hands are coming from your back legs. Your front legs are producing your pork butt and your pork picnic roasts. So that's where it can be a little confusing because you've got, you've got four legs and four kind of

hip areas or shoulder areas, and you might think they're the same, but they do produce different cuts. a question that we get asked often is, why are you always sold out of lamb shanks? Well, a lamb shank compared to a beef shank, one beef shank steak, we get them cut two inches thick, weighs about the same as an entire lamb shank, so an entire lamb little leg.

So they're only, you only get four lamb shanks per lamb because they only have four legs and you cutting them in the same way that you would with a beef. You're going to be left with such tiny little things like they'd be fit for a little doll tea party. They're so tiny, but

That's where understanding the difference, realizing that an ox tail is actually a beef animal's tail, so there is only one per animal, is a huge piece of education that we have found. People don't always realize that the ox tail is actually the tail. And we butcher between one and three animals a month. So if you're a little bit late getting to ordering,

they're all gone because it's not like the shanks where there are a lot of quantity. It's not like some of the other cuts where you do have a large amount. There is only one tail and that's what you've got to deal with. So really understanding the animal as a whole will make you better at cooking and just making you better at ⁓ understanding what

the animal can produce because a whole animal isn't all steaks and it all isn't ground beef either.

Erin W (23:58)
So, often when we think about purchasing large quantities directly from a farmer, I think ideally we'd all love to have the selection of an entire animal, so an entire cow, but that would be really hard to store for most people in their home, and even a half is ⁓ two freezers full, I can testify to. And then when we start looking at quarters, which is...

Charlotte (24:12)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. It's a lot. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Erin W (24:27)
often the amount that maybe a home cook can take in and acquire left with the decision of front quarter and back quarter. And I always find myself being like, which one if I'm going to order a quarter, which one should I do? Is there any advice you have based on like, if you're more of a this cook, go for the front. If you're more of a that cook, go for the back. Or can you kind of get

a good mixture of both low and slow or fast and quick cuts from each.

Charlotte (24:59)
You get a good mixture of both from each and then it goes down to people have this question all the time I asked them what do you prefer rib steaks or do you prefer T bone steaks or strip loin steaks again same thing what.

What do you want more? Do you like a lot of roasts? Because from the hind quarter you're going to get a few more roasts because that's where your round primal is and that gives you the inside, the outside, the eye of round and also the sirloin roasts. So there are a lot of roasts that come from that hind quarter. You can also get that's where your flank steak is, that's where your tri tip is. So if you break it down, if you

dive into those really individualistic cuts, you can get some really great ones. But you also get some really great ones in the front. The only cut you're going to get in the front is going to be the brisket. You do not get that in the hind because the brisket hangs between the front legs of the animal. But on the hind, you're only going to get things like the oyster steaks, which are these teeny tiny little steaks. And you're also only going to get the tri-tip from the hind. So that's

the question I ask what what kind of steaks or roasts do you like to eat because you get you get both types of low and slow and hot and fast in either quarter it comes down to your personal like I would I would rather have rib steaks versus strip loins so that's your that's the question you have to ask yourself

Heather (26:11)
Mm-hmm.

Erin W (26:31)
Okay, cool.

Heather (26:33)
So many things to know. It's really

Charlotte (26:33)
Yeah.

Erin W (26:35)
just buy another freezer

and get a whole half.

Charlotte (26:38)
Yeah,

Heather (26:39)
There's so many good things to know. And I mean, I feel like we probably kind of scratched the surface of it. So.

Erin W (26:47)
Yes.

Heather (26:49)
I encourage everybody to go check out your website and follow you on social media because you do post this kind of information and also beautiful photos of the farm and farm life, which is really great. So can you tell our listeners where they can find and follow you?

Charlotte (27:05)
Yes, you can find us on Instagram and Facebook. Our handle is Chatsworth underscore farm on Instagram and then just Chatsworth farm on Facebook and our new website. If you're wanting to go and take a look at all of the different cuts that give you a really good breakdown of what they look like. and we worked really hard on the description so that we could be as informative as possible.

So we've gone with alternate names, where it comes from, how many of this particular cut is on an animal, and then our favorite ways to cook it and what you can expect out of that cut. So try to be really

rich in that detail. That's on our shop page. And it just gives you a good overview of what you can look for, maybe in store or at a butcher shop if you're not in Alberta. And we sell to customers in Edmonton and Calgary and then locally around our community.

and we would love to have you join us. It's a lot of fun to get questions from people asking about the different cuts of meat and I've been trying to do a

every Monday that I have a chance, I do a meet the meat and it focuses on one particular cut and then goes into some of the history of that cut, why it's really popular, maybe why it was popular at one point and now it's a little or it was a little less popular and now it's growing in popularity again, how to cook it, where it's located on the animal, again, all those really rich details.

Erin W (28:21)
you

Charlotte (28:41)
So that's been really fun and a lot of people have liked to connect with those posts, which is fantastic.

Erin W (28:47)
Yeah. Well, to get educated on all of this, go and check out that website.

Heather (28:54)
And will link it in the show notes. So everybody just scroll down, click, go straight to Chatsworth Farm.

Charlotte (28:54)
Thank you for, yeah.

Thanks very much for having me. It's so much fun to talk about this and it's great to be able to give people the knowledge about the things that they really want because we all love food and it's more fun when we can know more about what we're cooking.

Heather (29:16)
And then we have some fantastic meal at the end of it instead of just, well, I made the same old thing with that pound of ground beef. Now we're like, it just opens up our world and we can make so many different things. So I love it.

Charlotte (29:19)
Mm-hmm.

Erin W (29:21)
Right?

Charlotte (29:27)
Mm-hmm.

Yes.

I love cooking. I love being able to spend time in my kitchen and create something really delicious.