Meat Illustrated: A Foolproof Guide to Understanding and Cooking with Cuts of All Kinds

America's Test Kitchen

Increase your meat counter confidence with this must-have companion for cooking beef, pork, lamb, and veal with more than 300 kitchen-tested recipes.

Part cookbook, part handbook organized by animal and its primal cuts, Meat Illustrated provides essential information and techniques to empower you to explore options (affordable cuts like beef shanks instead of short ribs, lesser-known cuts like country-style ribs, leg of lamb instead of beef tenderloin for your holiday centerpiece), and recipes that make those cuts shine. Meat is a treat; we teach you the best methods for center-of-the-plate meats like satisfying Butter-Basted Rib-Eye Steaks (spooning on hot butter cooks the steaks from both sides so they come to temperature as they acquire a deep crust), meltingly tender Chinese Barbecued Roast Pork Shoulder (cook for 6 hours so the collagen melts to lubricate the meat), and the quintessential Crumb-Crusted Rack of Lamb. Also bring meat beyond centerpiece status with complete meals: Shake up surf and turf with Fried Brown Rice with Pork and Shrimp. Braise lamb shoulder chops in a Libyan-style chickpea and orzo soup called Sharba.

Illustrated primal cut info at the start of each section covers shopping, storage, and prep pointers and techniques with clearly written essays, step-by-step photos, break-out tutorials, and hundreds of hand-drawn illustrations that take the mystery out of meat prep (tie roasts without wilderness training; sharply cut crosshatches in the fat), so you'll execute dishes as reliably as the steakhouse. Learn tricks like soaking ground meat in baking soda before cooking to tenderlize, or pre-roasting rather than searing fatty cuts before braising to avoid stovetop splatters. Even have fun with DIY curing projects.