Chuck Eye Steak Redux

[Jenise]

Over the weekend I picked up some chuck eye steaks at my local market and photographed them before they went on the grill. We had been discussing them here, and Carrie had bought a steak called, I think, chuck mock tenders which some website claimed was another name for the chuck eye steak. She posted a photo and her steak bore no resemblance to what I've been buying and loving. Hers was kind of kidney bean shaped and lean, lacking any of the visible marbling that suggests tenderness.

Oddly, last week for the first time I saw chuck mock tenders at the same market I've been buying the chuck eye steaks at, and just like in Carrie's picture they bore no resemblance to the eye steak. The mock tender looked more like round steak--tight grained, no marbling--and would appear to be some muscle all it's own as it's girdled in a thin layer of silverskin. That meat, whatever it is, is definitely not my beloved eye steak.

Here, for Carrie and anyone else, is a picture of what I've been buying. This shows two steaks, btw, not one, each is about 8 ounces.

DSC04273-1.JPG

Jenise, I am going to have to continue my quest for this steak. It looks wonderful. Thanks for posting the photo.

Jenise, from looking at the picture(s) you included, I am thinking that your chuck eye steaks are cut from the chuck eye roll, a picture of this (and others) can be found at http://www.beeffoodservice.com/cuts/Info.aspx?code=15 I buy the whole chuck eye roll from a local distributor and pay $1.85 per pound, for USDA choice, and it weighs 15-20 pounds. I do need to trim some excess fat away, maybe as much as 10% of the total weight. I haven't ever weighed this fat so that is an estimate. I use it for pot roasts (delicious) and I also grind it for ground chuck, but it usually comes closer to ground round or even sirloin from a fat to lean ratio. So accounting for the waste it winds up costing me just about $2 per pound for some excellent meat. Another link that will show how to cut the whole chuck eye has an advantage of some really nice pictures of each section of the chuck eye roll can be found at the link below, and it furthers explains what your chuck eye steaks are.

http://www.beefretail.org/uDocs/Chuck%2 ... 0Guide.pdf

PS: it seems as if I need to trim some steaks off the next roll I buy. Note to self!

[Jenise]

Carrie, good luck.

Bob, that looks exactly like what my steaks would be cut off of, and I see there the piece the so-called "mock tenders" would be cut off of, too. Like I described above, it's a muscle into itself. Should go straight to ground beef, if you ask me (though like you I prefer chuck for ground meat).

there are a couple of different things that get sold as chuck eye around here. one looks much like Jenise's photo and the other doesn't. i asked the butcher today about ones that looked like the ones in the photo and he said they in fact were really rib eye steaks cut from further out on the end.