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Cheap grocery store meat. Before you even asked, "What is this?" you had it in your cart, slammed it on the belt, and paraded it across your living room and into the kitchen like a proud hunter — a bargain hunter. But now you're asking yourself, "What is this and how the heck do I cook it?"
There are two reasons why meat would be cheap. One, it's about to expire (or has expired already). Or two, it's usually a less popular and tough cut of meat requiring more skill and longer cooking time to prepare. In this article I will give you the "101" on cheap meat cookery so that you can be a proud bargain hunter and a proud cook as well.
Should I buy it? At that price, you'd be stupid not to, right? Wrong. First you must ascertain whether it's cheap because it's bad, or cheap because it's less popular. Your nose was put on your face for this purpose. So tear the plastic wrapping and smell the meat. If it smells like poop, put it back. Chicken and pork should be pretty much odorless, and beef should smell like blood. It's OK if beef smells a little sour, but it should not make you do the I-just-smelled-something-really-bad face. If it stinks, it's bad. Your nose never lies.
Beef, it's what's for dinner. The softer and fattier the cut, the more expensive. Reversely, the leaner and tougher the cut, the cheaper it is. You will probably find cuts of beef like bottom round, chuck steak, sirloin tip, brisket and shanks on sale. And while they may not be things you stick on the grill, you can prepare really delicious dishes with a little more time and effort. You can take chuck steak, put it into a pressure cooker or slow cooker and make a flavorful, tender stew. Beef shanks are gold if you prepare them Osso Bucco style (Google it). And you can tenderize tougher cuts like bottom round, sirloin tip and brisket with some meat tenderizer (like papain or papaya enzyme) added to your favorite marinade over night.
Chicken. For dark meat lovers like myself, I'm glad that I can always find cheap chicken leg quarters, drumsticks and boneless chicken thighs. Dark meat has a slightly higher fat content than breast meat, which makes it softer and juicier. For really good grilled chicken legs, you can soak the legs in salted water with lemon juice for 1 hour, then pat dry and dust them with adobo seasoning or all-purpose Spanish seasoning. Turn half of your BBQ grill on high and leave the other half off. Put the chicken pieces over the side that is off, close the lid and wait 45 minutes to an hour for perfectly roasted, crispy chicken. And remember: Expensive chicken breasts are for suckers.
Pork, the other white meat. Probably the lowest-priced and most readily available meat around. You can always find whole pork shoulders, Boston butt roasts and hams on sale. If done right, a nice pork shoulder or butt roast is sublime. You can stab the pork with a knife, twist, and then fill the hole with garlic, herbs and spices. Do this throughout the whole piece. Rub the outside of the pork with plenty of all-purpose seasoning, oil and herbs and marinate in the fridge overnight. Roast it at 325-350 over a few hours and you should end up with a delicious pork roast that will make you wonder why you ever spent all that money roasting expensive beef. The trick to perfecting your pork is to experiment with lots of herbs and spices.
Now take this article and tear through your neighborhood market with a big grin, for you are the great white bargain hunter, and cheap meat is your game.
