Meat is part of a varied diet
Meat can be turned into almost any kind of food if you make use
of the various types of meat on offer.
Beef, lamb, chicken, turkey, mincemeat, veal, reindeer, game, wild
boar and offal, either as it is or as fillets, joints, steaks and
sliced – there is plenty to choose from at the meat counter of
Stockmann's Delicatessen.
Stockmann also has range of oven-ready products made to our own
recipes, which are easy and fast to make.
The terms red and white meat are often used when talking about meat. Red meat means beef, pork, lamb, reindeer and elk meat, and white meat refers to chicken and turkey. The terms relating to colour are explained by the different types of muscle cells. Chicken and turkey are white and have a low percentage of fat because the muscles contain a lot of white muscle cells and little connective tissue, making the meat tender. Red meat, on the other hand, has more slow muscle cells and more connective tissue.
Choose meat according to the method of preparation
The suitability and tenderness of beef for various dishes depends on which part of the carcass the piece of meat has been cut. The method of cooking is also relevant to the different parts from the carcass. The front parts of a cow, the shin, breast, shoulder and chuck, only become tender by boiling or stewing them.
Silverside and knuckle joints are tender if they are stewed after frying. Fillet is most suited for steak as the meat is tender.
The method of cooking pork is not so important with regard to
the tenderness of the meat.
Read in greater detail on the following page »
Meat is light, the fattiness comes from accompaniments
Contrary to its reputation, meat as such is light to eat and the fat from meat is better in terms of its quality. Around half of the fat from all types of meat is soft fat, and because the fat from meat is nearly always visible, it can be removed before or after cooking. For example, entrecôte is made from a succulent steak because of its greater fat content and the melted fat can be left in the pan. Once all the visible fat has been removed, meat only contains around 4% fat.
What is crucial in the amount of fat in meat is how the meat is cooked and what accompaniments are served with it. Breaded steaks absorb the frying fat, but the meat itself does not absorb the fat, so meat can be fried in a pan in vegetable oil, for instance. In addition, boiling or stewing in a microwave or oven are good and fat-free ways of cooking meat, whereas marinades, seasoned butters and cheese toppings, and fatty accompaniments served with meat increase the fat content.
How to fry the best steak!
- Choose tender meat for the steak, for example a tenderloin or top loin steak. In the best steak meat, the fat is between the muscle fibres, when the meat is called marbled.
- Take the meat out to warm at room temperature for about 30 minutes before frying.
- Dry the surface of the meat with kitchen paper and season the meat with salt and pepper just before frying.
- The best steak pan is cast iron or some other heavy-bottomed frying pan. Heat butter or a mixture of oil and butter for frying the steak until it is a clear golden brown.
- Add the steak to the pan and leave some space in the pan. The meat to be fried must fill up a maximum of half the pan. If the pan is too full, it cools and the juices from the steak run into the pan.
- The frying time for the steak depends on the thickness of the steak and the desired degree of cooking. Turn thinner steaks once the juices from the meat start to bubble to the surface.
- With fatter steaks, the aim of frying in a pan is to seal the surface of the meat so that the meat stays succulent. The final cooking is done in the oven, which cooks the meat through but does not burn or dry it out. Place the steaks from the pan onto an ovenproof dish in which steaks, around 4 cm high and cut from the central part of the steak, will cook to medium rare in around 6 minutes and to well done in around 12 minutes.
- Let the meat rest for around 10–15 minutes before serving. Then the meat juices keep in the steak and the meat looks good.
- Finally, you can, if you wish, season the steaks with herbs. Good seasoning herbs for steaks are flat-leaf parsley, tarragon and thyme.
