BajaNomad

meat cuts in Baja

jim janet - 11-10-2005 at 09:02 PM

Being a north american carnivor can anyone tell me the translation for cuts of beef and pork in the large Mexican super markets.I do have trouble trying to find cuts that I recognize

comitan - 11-10-2005 at 09:06 PM

Don't worry just eat fish, shrimp and clams, cooked over a camp fire.

Oso - 11-10-2005 at 09:42 PM

They are rarely the same except in big city supermarkets. In most of Mexico, cuts go with the grain to facilitate shredding because the beef tends to be tougher. Cattle wanders the desert, exercising muscles and staying leaner. There is very little corn-fed, lazy feedlot cattle to be had.

Chuletas= chops
Bisteck= steaks, but usually much thinner, tougher and pounded.
Carne molida= ground (hamburger)
Carne para tamales= chunks of roast-shoulder etc.
Carne para asar= usually chuck steak but cut very thin
Pierna= "leg" usually rump roast or any cut above the "knee".
Costillas= ribs

bajalera - 11-10-2005 at 10:39 PM

Lotsa luck on solving that problem.

capt. mike - 11-11-2005 at 06:17 AM

OSO - curious, why does Sonoran range fed cattle have so much tender jiucy flavor??

best steaks i ever had, beats nebrASKA and iowa corn fed penned cattle every time, hoofs down.

hummmmm. think i;ll go get a prime rib and slow roast one in the smoker.....pronto!!

Bob and Susan - 11-11-2005 at 07:11 AM

It's that "jumpin catus" they eat....

remember....

"you are what you eat"....:lol::lol:

bajajudy - 11-11-2005 at 07:54 AM

This was pilfered from Vicky Cowal
El Universal

- beef res or carne de res
- beef brisket manzana de pecho de res
- boneless blade paleta
- boneless shoulder espaldilla
- chuck diezmillo
- filet (or tenderloin) filete (the side piece is called the cana)
- flank falda
- ground meat carne molida
- marrow tuetano
- oxtail cola de buey
- roast beef rosbif or entrecot
- round steak pulpa
- rump cuete
- shank chambarete
- short ribs agujas
- shoulder pescuezo
- sirloin aguayon
- stewing beef empuje de res en trozos
- t-bone t-bone

Oso - 11-11-2005 at 09:03 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by capt. mike
OSO - curious, why does Sonoran range fed cattle have so much tender jiucy flavor??

best steaks i ever had, beats nebrASKA and iowa corn fed penned cattle every time, hoofs down.



Beats me, I think maybe it's not ALL Sonoran beef, just certain ranches with good forage. I have a hard time finding tender, thick cuts in SLRC and only buy beef in Supermarkets when I'm headed to El Golfo to camp out since you can't bring raw meat back across the border. I also can't find a tender rare or medium rare steak in SLRC restaurants. Everyone here wants it sliced thin and blackened to a crisp. Maybe it's different down around San Carlos & Guaymas.

bajajudy - 11-11-2005 at 09:15 AM

Capt Mike
I agree 100%. I get Sonora NY's for around 45.00pesos a pound that 9 out of 10 times melt in you mouth.
One day I decided to buy some ny's from costco and they tasted like cardboard to me...yuck.:barf:

[Edited on 11-11-2005 by bajajudy]

Bajalero - 11-11-2005 at 09:19 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by capt. mike
OSO - curious, why does Sonoran range fed cattle have so much tender jiucy flavor??

best steaks i ever had, beats nebrASKA and iowa corn fed penned cattle every time, hoofs down.

hummmmm. think i;ll go get a prime rib and slow roast one in the smoker.....pronto!!



Mike


could very well just be the wey its handled. When we butcher a beef here in the states its hung , gutted and usually in the cold locker within a few hours where we leave it for a min. of 21 days to age.

I've got friends at a ranch in the baja desert where we've butchered a steer in the heat of the summer and carved off of it for several days as we needed it. It definately developed an exellent characteristic flavor and seemed to get more tender very rapidly.

So the difference? - Slow versus rapid rotting? Who knows but I will agree with you that some of the best flavored beef I've ever consumed was in Mexico

Lero

Marie-Rose - 11-11-2005 at 09:26 AM

Judy
Where do you go to get your beef? We have gone to the little place situated outside
of the public market and have usually had either really good steaks or very tough !!!

bajajudy - 11-11-2005 at 10:03 AM

I go to that one occasionally but normally I go to Frutas Y Verduras in Colonia Santa Rosa. The butcher cuts me nice thick NY's. I usually buy 8 or 10 and freeze what we dont eat the first night. 8 costs me around $38...that is a rough estimate with all the changing from kilos to pounds and pesos to dollars.
To get to this particular Frutas coming from San Lucas direction, go past all the lights for San Jose. The Pemex and baseball stadium are on your right. The next stop light take a left and go up about 1/2 block on the right. This is a local chain so there are other stores but I have not had much luck with any of the others

Oso - 11-11-2005 at 10:16 AM

Many years ago, I read a book by a couple who were cruising around the world in a sailboat. Can't remember the title or exactly where in Baja they had stopped for provisions- maybe Mag Bay or La Paz? Anyway, it was before widespread refrigeration and the butcher shops in the town market hung their beef in the open. The writers noted the swarms of flies all over the carcasses in the stalls. All except one. There were no flies at all on the beef at one stall. They asked the butcher his secret. With a big grin, he replied "Uso Flit", proudly displaying an old type pump spray gun of DDT.

mrchuck - 11-11-2005 at 10:35 AM

Sonora beef IS pen fed, and corn added the last 6 weeks before slaughter.
They like white face herefords, angus and brangus, and some pen-fed ranches specialize in black angus.

The big supermarlets carry Sonora beef. Just ask.
And the price is about half for what you will pay at Costco for US beef.

Captain Mike is absolutely right about filet mignon, T bone, and New York thick cuts.
But watch out for the thin cut of above, as this will most likely be bogus no matter what the label might say.

Saludos,,,mc

Bob and Susan - 11-11-2005 at 12:39 PM

WHAT!!! no jumpin catus???:lol:

pen fed???
didn't eat grass on the hiway???
corn fed???

Maybe it's the butcher....

vandenberg - 11-12-2005 at 08:47 AM

Ober the years we have decided that the filete is the best buy in Mexican beef. We get ours usually from Ley's or Soriana, with the latter quite a bit more expensive then Ley's. The going price right now is $ 139.50 pesos a kilo. Do your own math. All meat, no waste and VERY good.

Cobia - 11-12-2005 at 09:43 AM

I was told by a Mexican gentleman that the distiinctive flavor of Sonoran beef is the wild oregano that grows everywhere in Sonora. The cows eat so much of it that they take on the flavor.

Sonoran beef does have a rich distinctive flavor and I find it excellant.

Cobia

and what's with all the ham?!

flyfishinPam - 11-12-2005 at 05:26 PM

soriana and ley have about 50 different kinds of ham in their deli counter. What's up with that? They both have a nice big area to display deli meats and choose to stock it with nothing but ham! Makes me crazy. In Loreto all you can get is pork ham, turkey ham and bologna YUK.

Bob and Susan - 11-12-2005 at 05:46 PM

it all tastes like chicken anyway...

Meat Cuts in San Felipe

MrBillM - 11-12-2005 at 06:35 PM

We were shopping one day at Mercado Baja. At their meat counter, they had a long list of American cuts of beef available. The gentleman in front of us ordered a couple of Spencer Steaks.
The butcher pulled out this large cut of beef and cut off a couple. Afterwards, we ordered a couple of Filet Mignon. He pulled out the same slab and cut two steaks off. A great system. One slab of beef and it can be anything you want it to be.

Speaking of a variety of the same thing, Mercado Sembrador must have a dozen or more different brands of weiners in their deli case and they're ALL the same cheap Pork, Chicken and Turkey franks. Not a single package of quality Beef franks. I suppose that's what sells. I've noticed at the AM-PM that the customers clean out all of the CHEAP hotdogs, but leave the Jumbo All-Beef.

flyfishinPam - 11-14-2005 at 12:48 PM

Last night some friends came over with dinner to throw on the grill. They brought chuletas de res. These look like carne asada beef (same thickness) with bones and taste way better. From now on I'll be getting these instead of carne de res para asar!

Different Cuts

MrBillM - 11-14-2005 at 02:26 PM

This reminds me of a funny (to me) incident that occurred years ago to a friend of mine.

This friend sold his house At Alfonsina's in Gonzaga Bay after getting a divorce and moved over to the Ensenada area because his first passion was fishing and he was getting too old to take out his own boat. Arriving in Ensenada and buying a house a little inland, he started looking around for a younger girl friend (he was in his 60s at the time), starting with one in her early 30s and ending up with one in her teens.

One thing he missed from the U.S. was Good aged Beef Steaks. On one trip North for supplies and legal business, he stopped and bought two superb Spencer steaks. Thought about them all the way home. Took them in and showed them to his squeeze and said they would broil them that evening. While he was out working on his vehicle, the Gal chopped them up for Carne Asada. He said he almost cried. Different Culture.

bajajudy - 11-14-2005 at 06:13 PM

Bill and Senor A
Same thing happened to a friend of mine who owns a restaurant.
She did cry

Oso - 11-14-2005 at 06:44 PM

Not meat, but pasta. While I wouldn't attempt to impress Italians with it, one of the few edible things I learned to cook in my batchelor days was spaghetti. In the early days we were together, I would occasionally make it for my wife. Aside from no real ricotta, the wrong oregano and suspect parmesan, one of the most dissapointing things about our little village of Cuajimalpa was the fact that the closest thing I could get to spaghetti pasta was about 8" long "fideos". One day I was wandering around downtown Mexico City and stumbled upon a little store run by Italian immigrants. They had prosciutto and imported olive oil and lo and behold; REAL pasta almost 3' long (I think, memory fades). I bought a kilo and made my way home- not so simple. I had no car then, so it was jam-packed peseros, tranvias and third class chicken buses the 22 Km back up the mountain. I protected my precious pasta with my life, constantly worrying about slamming doors and fat co-passengers breaking it. Somehow I made it home with me and the pasta intact. I left it in the kitchen and went to see about assembling the other ingredients. When I returned, my visiting Mother-in-Law (a wonderful person, BTW) informed me that the "sopa de fideos" was ready. She had carefully broken all the pasta into 2" pieces and boiled them until mushy for soup.