Back in the day when we fabricated carcass beef at store level we had a pet-name for a certain muscle and we called it the "rat-tail"! Now I know the old-timers like myself out there knows what it is, but I would like to find out if any of the younger meat cutters ever saw one! Or if they know where it can be found in a carcass of beef.
Back in the day when we fabricated carcass beef at store level we had a pet-name for a certain muscle and we called it the "rat-tail"! Now I know the old-timers like myself out there knows what it is, but I would like to find out if any of the younger meat cutters ever saw one! Or if they know where it can be found in a carcass of beef.
I never heard that one before. I'd guess it's either the mouse (from the heel), or could it be "chain meat" along a bone in chuck? Neither really resembles a rat tail to me. I've broken probably a few hundred carcasses wholesale and retail combined and can't picture anything looking like a rat tail. Anxious to hear the answer.
You hit the nail on the head Bugermeister. You call it the mouse, years ago we called it the rat-tail. Back in the day we used to roll the heel and tie it using part of the flat. That tin part of the flat was always a hard sell. So we opened up the heel, removed the rat-tail then remove the connective tissue on the heel. We would leave the heel attached to the thin end of the flat and laid the heel on top of it and sort of tied it inside out. We put 8 to 10 rings on it (ties) about an inch apart then only cut it into to two roast. It made a delicious pot roast or oven roast depending on your needs.
You couldn't leave the rat-tail in because it looks to much like shank meat so we removed it and either ground it for ground round or cut it about the same size as you joint a oxtail and stacked them in a number 1 boat. We sold that for boneless soup meat or shank meat.
-- Edited by Coalcracker on Wednesday 5th of October 2016 08:20:39 PM
when i was a apprentice in the 80s we used to run full cut round at 99c from time to time. my job would be to lean out all the heals.. we would buy the rat tails and let them dam near dry in the sun made the best turtle bait.
-- Edited by toby (the meat slave) on Friday 6th of January 2017 11:34:25 AM
Ha, that's a good one Toby. You mention full cut round steak. When I was an apprentice my dept. manager would never, ever let us use the band saw to cut full slabs of round steak. He cut them all by hand using a hand saw to cut the femur bone. He had the longest steak knife I ever saw I am sure the blade was 15 inches long and it was sharp as a razor. It was hard for me to do it without making uneven steaks but after I got the hang of it I became pretty efficient at it. Only with the "long knife". LOL>
Another thing I remember was making rolled rump roast. You couldn't keep them in the case. We would cut the first cut of the full round right down through the bottom round leaving the rump, (3 corner roast) attached to it. We then would clean out fat and grizzle and get our "needle" out and attach the twine on the end of the needle and run it through the open end of the full cut round steak into and through the corner of the rump. We would then even it out by tying string one inch apart from the open end to the thicker end of the rump. Made a beautiful roast and boy where they delicious.
Back in that era, my grandmother would have this huge cast iron skillet, she would get it really hot on the coal stove pour in olive oil and slices of garlic cut with a razor so you could see through it. She would throw a handful into the hot olive oil and immediately the garlic would caramelize. Then she would drop that slab of round steak in the hot oil and count to 60, then flip it over and count to 60 again and then drop that slab on a big serving platter and those red, hot, juices would begin to flow out of the steak and we would dig right in with a slice of steak in one hand and good Italian bread in the other. The best steak you could ever eat. It makes me want to run out an get one right now. Oh, but wait a minute. You can't find them anymore, and if you did, you couldn't find a meat cutter to cut it! LOL>LOL>LOL>
Had a customer once ask for the toughest cut of beef available. It was for her daughter that had a speech problem and the doctor told her to get something for her to chew on to strength her jaw muscles.
She bought sliced rat tail and was happy. Late 80's.
You hit the nail on the head Bugermeister. You call it the mouse, years ago we called it the rat-tail. Back in the day we used to roll the heel and tie it using part of the flat. That tin part of the flat was always a hard sell. So we opened up the heel, removed the rat-tail then remove the connective tissue on the heel. We would leave the heel attached to the thin end of the flat and laid the heel on top of it and sort of tied it inside out. We put 8 to 10 rings on it (ties) about an inch apart then only cut it into to two roast. It made a delicious pot roast or oven roast depending on your needs.
You couldn't leave the rat-tail in because it looks to much like shank meat so we removed it and either ground it for ground round or cut it about the same size as you joint a oxtail and stacked them in a number 1 boat. We sold that for boneless soup meat or shank meat.
-- Edited by Coalcracker on Wednesday 5th of October 2016 08:20:39 PM
