slash said:
Time to find a good butchers me thinks,bought some beef from Asda and it must of been the worst bland crap i have ever eaten..Any tips on best cut of beef to buy that doesnt cost the earth..
If you want to get interested in decent meat, where to get it, what cuts you can get for cheap and how to cook them, I can only recommend (yet again) Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's book
Meat. If you read through the chapters on meat production I swear it will change what you eat.
Meat is muscle, and as a rough guide, meat that works a lot (legs and neck, say) is tough and needs long, slow cooking, but is usually dirt cheap, whereas meat that doesn't do much (like beef fillet) is tender, cooks fast, and costs lots. Also, roughly, tough meat has more flavour than tender meat; so a sirloin or rump steak has more flavour than a fillet steak.
Meat from supermarkets generally isn't aged properly. As meat ages it tenderises but it also loses weight in the form of moisture (ageing = controlled "going off"). Since weight is money, the supermarkets like to get the meat onto the shelves as soon as possible. It made me laugh when Sainsbury's bought out their 21-days matured beef; the message that sends to me is that they're admitting all the other beef they're selling is rubbish. Good meat shouldn't be red and springy, it should be almost purple/brown and leave a dent when you press a finger into it... almost sticky to the touch in fact.
Ah man I could write about this for hours and bore everyone to death. Get
Meat.