What if I don't like steak with a lot of fat on it?
Updated: Mar 24, 2018
After decades in the steak business, we’ve heard every question you can imagine. One remark we hear on occasion is that a customer doesn’t like steak with a lot of fat on it. They ask for help choosing a lean steak. Some customers have dietary concerns while others just grew up thinking if there was visible fat on the steak, it wasn’t a good cut. So, let’s “chew the fat” on fat.
First of all, don’t be embarrassed by your preferences. Just like you should drink a wine that you enjoy, the same is true for eating steak.
Second, all of our steaks come trimmed of excess fat around the edges. So when we judge steak based on fat, what we’re really talking about is marbling. Marbling is the flecks and ribbons of fat in a steak that can actually look like marble. When steaks cook, the intramuscular fat renders and becomes very flavorful. So from a taste standpoint, marbling = flavor!
The degree of marbling depends on the breed and diet of the cow. Rube’s steaks come from black Angus beef, a breed known for its strong marbling characteristics. And the cow’s diet is also very important in what the steak looks like and tastes like. Cows raised in Iowa forage on grasses but are also finished on a diet of corn, which helps create that flavorful marbling. We don’t carry 100% grass-fed beef because you just can’t get that juicy, flavorful eating experience from an animal raised only on grass.
While all of our steaks come from corn-fed beef, some cuts of steak are leaner than others.
Rube’s ribeye is very well marbled and is also our most flavorful steak. Side by side with a New York Strip, you can see that the strip does not have significant marbling throughout. That’s because the strip is a leaner cut of beef.
Here you see two lean cuts of beef - the top sirloin and the filet mignon. There is little marbling in either steak. However, both are delicious!
Our sirloins are all USDA Prime - it means they’re as marbled as any sirloin will be and also more tender than any other sirloin.
Although very lean, the filet mignon is our most tender steak. We offer filet mignon with or without bacon. Customers love our bacon-wrapped filet mignon! The bacon adds a boost of flavor to this exquisitely tender steak.
Ultimately, the choice to eat lean versus marbled is yours. And really, you can’t go wrong with a good quality steak. For a lean steak, choose a filet mignon, New York strip or top sirloin. Just make sure it’s USDA Choice or better to ensure tenderness. And consider trying different steaks and different preparation methods until you find your favorite cut of Rube’s steak!
I always thought fat on a steak was a bad thing, so this really changed how I look at marbling. I used the War of Genesis: Idle Loot Wiki to compare cuts while picking a lean one, and the filet mignon tip helped a lot.
Such juicy marbled beef and your steaks look all amazing. Plus your research is pretty interesting as I myself a huge fan of cattle farming and have been into research (corn-fed vs grass-fed cows, their growth and production of both milk and meat quality). My NVQ health and safety assignment is also about assessing milk and meat quality, and your points are worth noting. Thanks buddy.
Rube’s ribeye is definitely very well marbled as it is easy to see and the flavor is just out of this world. I was thinking of including corn-fed cows vs grass-fed ones in farming industry h&s portoflio I was planning on. Talked to allnvqanswers UK on how to use evidence in level 6 OHS answers and by the way, it seems like a great case study as whether grass-fed cows give as much flavorful beef compared with corn-fed ones and how it impacts OHS practices as we're dealing with lots of farming companies working on these two areas.
I always thought fatty steak meant bad steak, but now I get that marbling is where the flavor comes from. I’m glad they trim the outside fat, so I’ll try a filet or sirloin next time. I checked out Krillion for more cut details before I order.
Meowdoku is basically a grid of very picky cats. One per row, one per column, one per color zone, and nobody touches anyone diagonally. Now I keep planning my next move before finishing the current one.