kitchenananda: The Beef

The Beef

I've written before about the challenges that come with tackling large-scale projects for Bailey's Restaurants. Our Commissary staff produces massive quantities of food to be portioned and finished at each of our 7 restaurants. We butcher 3-6 whole pigs weekly for making pulled pork, sausages and other goodies. We cook at least 1,000 pounds of bacon a week. We produce a hundred-plus recipes for use all over the company. In the last few months we have brought Whole Steers into our wheelhouse.

Why? What does that mean? Dave has long been a strong supporter of Rain Crow Farms' Grass Fed Beef, essentially building an entire restaurant concept around their product at Bailey's Range. For years we bought parts of steer for different purposes, and eventually thought we could make the leap to the whole animal.

The initial goal was to serve Grass-Fed Beef Steaks at our new Rooster South Grand location, and have the rest to special out across the board including Short Ribs, Tri-Tip, and other cuts featured at Bridge. Of course, we now also make jerky, grind Sirloin and Round for Range, patty Juicy Lucy hamburgers and smoke Briskets for The 5th Wheel at 4 Hands Brewery. Stock, chili, carved smoked Sirloin are all coming primarily from the whole beast. All in all, that means 3 sides of beef a week.

A thousand pounds of steer, every week.

1,000 pounds tests us all: hands, arms, backs and tools. A chuck (shoulder) section alone weighs a hundred pounds and requires careful wrestling to move it safely. We employ meat hooks and teamwork to accomplish these tasks as we have no way of hanging the pieces or sliding them on a rail. Together we journey into the big, gristly and complex anatomy of a large mammal who's life we have taken to provide food for many.

Our champion on this weekly quest towards butchering perfection is my valued Sous-Chef AJ, who's love for the craft and diligent attention to training everyone in the operation has made it possible for a group of batch cooks to become de-facto beef butchers, and do a respectable job at it. Hogs are a snap compared to the steer!

AJ advises on the approach into the deep crevice along the shoulder blade.

These animals' muscles and bones try our skills and our knives; our rentals barely come up to the standard for edge-retention to allow a person to complete 6 hours of meat-cutting. AJ has lost the tips off 3 of his Shun knives at one point or another into the knee-joints of steers. (Luckily, the Bertarelli team keeps putting them back on at no charge, as Shun knives come with a lifetime sharpening guarantee!)

The latest sacrifice on the Altar of Meat was my Wusthof carving knife, which has done yeoman service over the past 8 years butchering fishes, hogs and now steers. All that flexing of the blade proved too much for the stiff resin handle, and you see the result:

Of course, that break happened on the first piece of the day, and so I improvised this fix:

I still managed to break down 7 quarters that day. Ultimately, the next move was to put Wusthof's warranty to the test. The customer service specialist on the phone asked zero questions when I explained what had happened. "Mail it in and we'll replace it," she said. Done.

Wait, shouldn't it have been laid in a boat, lit on fire, and sent out to sea? Too late for that. Maybe I should build a Cairn to its memory. . .

Of course, what was I going to do in the weeks that followed? I hatched a plan. Seeing as how it was the week of Christmas, I was going to wait until the holiday passed, then try out some knives at the local Williams-Sonoma and try to finagle a sale price on top of my Chef's Discount. I had the idea that Global knives might be my next move - a one-piece all-steel knife that theoretically could handle all the flexing I could give it.

Look here for their Professional line. Was thinking maybe the GF-31 for myself. . .

Then this showed up as a gift:

This is Shun's "Classic 8-inch Carving" knife, although actually the blade is longer than that due to the notch near the handle. The deep curve at the tip means the knife cuts even when merely being pushed straight forward. The concave bow in the middle of the blade seems to add a little extra cutting finesse when using a slashing motion to remove flat silver-skin or superficial fat. The blade and handle are heavier and thicker than some of Shun's other knives, and the curved tip reduces the need for all the blade-bending I'm used to doing. The sum: it's long, precise and wicked. I am thankful for the kind people in my world!

So again, here we go with another Steer-and-a-half. Get the team together, clear the decks and spend the next 6 hours lifting, slashing, slicing, trimming and sawing up the bones... a good ole time to be had by all.

Here's "New Orleans" getting that shoulder blade clean out of the chuck. It's hard work, but it sure feels good.