For roasts, the best cuts include rib (on the bone or boned and rolled), sirloin, top rump and fillet. For quick cooking, try fillet, entrecôte, rib eye, sirloin or rump steaks. Brisket, topside and silverside are good for pot roasts, and stewing and braising steak are good for stews and casseroles.
The best cuts of beef for roasting are the eye fillet, rib eye (on the bone or boneless fillet), sirloin or rump. When choosing your beef cut in store, look out for: A moderate covering of fat on cuts such as sirloin or rump – which will add delicious flavour and prevent the meat from drying out during cooking.
Traditional Roasting Joints
These are probably the most common and best known roasting joints and are usually the Silverside, Salmon cut and Topside. These cuts come from the top of the hind leg known as the Rump.
Topside is ideal for roasting as it is very tender and can be carved into lean slices.
Chuck roast is cut from the cow's shoulder. It is a heavily exercised muscle, which gives the beef good flavor but it also makes it tough.
For roasts, the best cuts include rib (on the bone or boned and rolled), sirloin, top rump and fillet. For quick cooking, try fillet, entrecôte, rib eye, sirloin or rump steaks.
Beef tenderloin is a great choice for your Christmas dinner because it's relatively easy to prepare. It also cooks quickly, has a nice presentation, and has no bones or fat to deal with. If you buy a beef tenderloin that is untrimmed, you're going to have some work to do.
It's overcooked. Overcooking meat causes it to dry out, and as moisture is lost, the meat gets tougher and so harder to chew. It was cooked at too high a temperature. For soft and tender meat, it's always better to cook it low and slow than to heat it very quickly, which causes the protein in the meat to toughen.
Cutting the beef into large chunks and gently cooking it in a stew is a great way to cook topside. It will become soft and should fall apart if cooked for long enough. Topside has less fat running through it than other cuts, making it leaner, and therefore it would work in a lower-fat stew, casserole or curry.
1) Choose the right cut
For a leaner roast, topside is an excellent choice and for a slightly fattier cut, top rump is also a good option. Both are best served rare/medium rare and are delicious served cold in sandwiches and salads.
Look for Marbling
Marbling, the little white flavor flecks within the lean beef, are key to great taste. Those little flecks of fat melt during cooking, and in the process, they baste the beef on the inside, shares Diana Clark, meat scientist for the Certified Angus Beef ® brand.
When cooking a roast in the oven, keep it uncovered until roasted to the desired doneness. After removing from the oven, tent with foil and let stand 15 minutes before carving. This allows the juices to redistribute, preventing them from draining out during carving—and preventing dry, disappointing meat.
This is called beef silverside in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Eye Round Roast/Steak or Eye of the Round: A boneless roast that looks like tenderloin, but it is much tougher. Used as a roast or cut into steaks. Steaks cut from the roast are used in stews or processed into cube steak.
A better bet than topside for the same price is probably bolar blade because while it can have a bit of gristle it is softer and more tender. I'd steer clear of gerello (aka girello) roasts as they are very lean and can become dry very quickly.
Topside comes from the inside of the hind leg, between the thick flank and the silverside. Topside is extremely lean and performs best when diced for slow-cooking in a hearty casserole or braise.
Cook It Slowly
This is certainly true when it comes to notoriously tough cuts of meat like beef brisket and pork shoulder. Cooking these cuts of meat slowly, either by braising, stewing or grill roasting, is the best way to get these tasty cuts of meat meltingly tender.
The key to cooking pot roast is cooking it low and slow. The meat should just fall apart, hence the name, and if it doesn't, you probably have not cooked it long enough. Also, I like to cook the potatoes separately, as they tend to be a little to mushy for my liking when you cook them with the roast.
Considered the most tender cut of all, a filet mignon is taken from the center of the beef tenderloin. It is lean yet delivers a melt-in-your mouth, buttery succulence. Perfect for grilling, pan-searing and broiling in the oven. Available in several weights, a filet is perfect for 1 person.
Top rump, also commonly known as thick flank, is sourced from the rear of the cow and like cuts from the surrounding area (topside and silverside), it's a very lean meat. It's a boneless cut, that like silverside and topside, usually comes barded, whereby a thin layer of fat is attached to the side to aid the cooking.
chuck roast: as mentioned, chuck is the best cut for this crock pot shredded beef. When it is slow cooked, it literally falls apart and it so tender. You could use round or rump roast if chuck is not available. beef broth: I opt for low sodium beef broth so that I can control the amount of salt in the recipe.
Rump roast can easily be cooked unattended in an oven or slow cooker. It's a good choice when you want to make pot roast, and leftovers are perfect for hot sandwiches with gravy or BBQ sauce. You can also cook it low and slow in chunks to make beef stew.
Undercooked pot roast will be tough and chewy. Test your roast with a fork before you remove it from the pot. If it is done, the fork will go in easily and you'll be able to twist off a forkful of meat. It if is still firm, return the roast to the pot and continue cooking for another hour.