Suggestions on Cow

My in laws are gentle farmers and play a bit at the whole thing. They have 3 ready to harvest cows but apparently the prices aren’t worth selling them any longer on the Open market. An unexpected abundance of meat is in order. These 3 cows have been cared for gently and allowed to graze on acres and acres and just be cows. They haven’t been groomed, so it’s going to be not highly marbled meat. Humanely raised meat is of great interest to us though so we a have a unique opportunity here to Get some great meat at a great price.

The other great thing is We have a cousin who is a butcher, processor, packer. I also know from the last time this happened that the cuts were fairly common and regular. And without putting in specific requests we got lots of tenderloin and hamburger ect.

This is my chance to steer this process a bit. I’m going to let them go to town on the “Fancy” cuts as we have of course have better sources for highly marbled meat. I’m looking for some suggestions as to what might be the best requests from the butcher about how to go about things to make some of the more unknown cuts into the most interesting uses possible.

Just off the top of my head I’m looking at
Whole Briskets
Ribs (Smoking)
Shanks
Oxtail
Skirt
Hanger
Denver Cut
Cheeks

I’d love to have the Rib Caps but I’m quite sure they would enjoy the rib roasts, so I don’t want to ruin those.

Any other thoughts on parts that might be the most interesting and shouldn’t be missed? If Bryan Flannery watches the board please chime in

No but I like the use of the word steer.

Message Tex. I think he raises cattle.

This. He’s also extremely generous with his advice and patiently explained to me how to smoke a brisket.

Check out Tex’s posts on steam

I have never been on steam (I thought it was a gaming platform?), but he posts a lot on Facebook. He should have been a chef.

Organs! Beef heart is very much like a steak and very mild flavored. Beef liver is incredibly nutritious and also quite delicious, as well as easy to prepare. A whole beef liver is big, too - we got a 15 lb liver that we broke down into 1 lb packages, vacuum sealed and froze. It’s a super easy dinner for two, even thaws quickly. Tongue is also very good, and can be used in a lot of ways for many different recipes (western, mexican, asian).

If you are into how nutritious organs are, but don’t like to eat them straight up so much, you can have them do an organ blend of ground meat. I get one from White Oak Farm that is Ground Chuck and Brisket (40%), Beef Liver (20%), Beef Heart (20%), Beef Spleen (10%), Beef Kidney (10%). I like to make highly spiced taco meat out of it more than a burger since the flavor is quite different. Incredibly dense nutrition. When I’m doing keto, I brown 2-3 oz of this regularly for breakfast or lunch, then mix with leftover vegetables and top with avocado or sour cream.

And Jewish. Homemade Pickled tongue is a staple in my house (even with a vegetarian wife)

With a name like Sarah Kirschbaum, you know I’m MOT.

Call me to discuss.