In cooking, beef is considered quite difficult to process meat, the handling of which requires skill. In fact, the muscle fibers that make up this meat are rich in fibrin and, in addition, are tightly connected to each other, which determines such a property of beef as rigidity. During heat treatment, the fibers and the bonds between them are partially destroyed, but it should be remembered that an incorrect course can ruin the dish. If stewing, or, say, roasting beef, does not seem difficult even for a novice housewife, then the question of how to cook beef properly deserves a separate discussion.
So, in order to decide how much time to cook beef, it is advisable to figure out which part of the carcass of the animal this particular piece is cut off. It is easiest to ask a butcher who was carving carcasses, since only a specialist with extensive experience can reliably determine one type of meat. There is one simple rule - the greater the load on the muscle, the stiffer the meat, the more prolonged heat treatment it requires. As for the gobies, and beef is obtained mainly from young or one and a half year old gobies, their most mobile muscles are on the chest, in the tail and lower legs. The meat cut from these parts, although it takes a long time to cook, has more pronounced, pleasant taste. Approximately, 500 g of such meat requires about two hours of cooking. Those pieces of beef that are cut from the muscles of the back, and especially the lower back and sacrum, as well as the muscles of the shoulder blade, are more tender, but have a worse, somewhat fresh taste. It is preferable to use such beef for stewing or baking, but if you decide to cook this meat, keep in mind that a piece weighing 500g will be ready in an hour and a half. However, the data presented is very indicative, because speaking about how much to cook beef, it is necessary to clarify the cooking method, the freshness of the meat, the method of its preliminary processing, and the ratio of the amount of water and meat.
In order to decide how much to cook beef, it would be nice to have an idea about the maturity of meat. Few people know that fresh meat is not as much appreciated by experienced chefs as ripened. The ripening process usually occurs in special conditions that are created at the enterprise, so the meat reaches its best quality and only after that goes on sale. If you get fresh meat, it is very advisable to let the beef ripen, because as a result, the taste of meat becomes better, and the cooking process is reduced by 5-10 minutes. Suitable conditions are provided in a conventional refrigerator, where the temperature is 0-4C - place a piece of meat on the grill so that air circulates around it and cover with a pan. Leave the structure for a few days, ideally for a week or two. A very important point is the air humidity of about 90%, so that the meat does not mold, but also does not dry out. In the process of such preparation, active meat enzymes begin to destroy muscle fibers, juice is secreted, which enhances the taste of beef, meat becomes much more tender.
The key to deciding how much to cook beef is the method of cooking meat. If you want to cook a broth or soup, then they start to cook beef in cold water - this is how meat gives its juices and nutrients to water. If you set out to boil the meat, while maintaining the maximum of its taste, then the meat should be immersed in boiling, salted water and cook less time (about 1.5 hours) without lowering the temperature of the water.
It should be noted that, even knowing how much to cook beef, you need to check the degree of meat preparedness with a knife, starting 1.5-2 hours after boiling water. If the knife glides easily - the meat is ready and you can start the meal.