Chuck steak surprise

Next time you see bone-in chuck steak for sale, look at the cuts carefully before picking out the ones to buy. Hidden many of them is a rib-eye ready to be carved out, at about half the price of cuts packaged as rib-eyes. And you can grind up the rest for a certified E.coli-free burger or chop it up for stew or a hearty soup, stretching your dollar even further.



This illustration isn't the best, because the cut featured has too much of the 7-bone (between numbers 2 and 3) and not enough of the complexus muscle (the bottom muscle, marked with the number 7). The best chuck to get has little of the 7-bone, a small rib bone, and a clearly defined curve, containing the complexus and some Longissimus dorsi muscle as well.