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Beef · cuts in detail
The cheapest cut makes the best dish
Fillet costs four times what shin does, and no fillet ever made a nihari worth eating. Muscles that work hard build the collagen that turns to gelatine; muscles that sit still stay tender. Price follows tenderness. Flavour does not.
Start here
Tap the cow
Eight sections, front to back. Tap any one to find out where it sits, how hard it worked, and what that means for the pot or the pan.
→ Tap a cut on the chart
Eight sections, one animal
Tap any cut on the chart. Every tile is a photograph of the real thing, not a diagram.
The question worth understanding
Why fillet costs four times what shin does
And why that has almost nothing to do with which one tastes better.
Fillet
Under the spine · does no work
The tenderloin sits tucked beneath the backbone and carries nothing at all. No work means no connective tissue, which means nothing to break down and nothing to wait for. It is the most tender meat on the animal and among the leanest, and lean means mild. Cook it hard and fast, take it off early, rest it. There is very little of it on a cow, which is the other half of the price.
Beef Fillet →Shin
The lower leg · works all day
Every step the animal takes goes through this muscle, so it is dense with the collagen that makes it inedible in under two hours, and extraordinary after four. That collagen turns to gelatine, coats every strand, thickens the sauce and gives nihari the body it is famous for. There is far more of it on a cow, and it costs a fraction. It also tastes of considerably more.
Beef Shin →You are paying for tenderness and scarcity, not flavour. If you have four hours, the cheap cut wins, every time.
The second question
On the bone, or off it?
For a curry the answer is almost always on. Here is why it matters more with beef than anything else in the shop.
Bone
Beef bones are big, and marrow is what makes a nihari or paya broth set when it cools. Take the bone out and you lose the body of the dish, not just some flavour.
Boneless
Faster, easier to portion, better for bhuna and anything where you want meat in every spoonful. Diced beef still wants ninety minutes, boneless does not mean quick.
Both
Plenty of cooks buy a mix: bone-in for the base, boneless for the body. Ask and we will cut it that way in one bag.
The parts most shops do not carry
Offal and paya
This is where a halal butcher earns its keep. Almost all of it is asked for daily across the counter at City Road and almost none of it is in a supermarket.
Fast
Liver in a hot pan with onion and green chilli, out before it tightens. Kidney soaked first, then quick. Heart sliced thin grills like steak.
Slow
Tongue simmered then peeled, richer and softer than any steak. Tripe cleaned thoroughly and given hours before it takes on spice.
Overnight
Trotters, gently, until the broth sets to jelly. There is no quick version of paya and there never has been.
The full picture
Every beef cut, on one chart
Where each cut sits on the animal and what it is called at the counter. Save it to your phone, or tap it to open full size.
Tell us the dish. We will tell you the cut.
Nihari, haleem, keema, a Sunday roast or steaks for the grill, say what you are cooking and we will cut and trim it to suit, fresh, the same day.
Shop all beefCut names change from household to household and region to region. If you call something by a different name, describe the dish and we will know exactly what you mean.
Cook it with HMC-certified halal beef from our counter. Hand slaughtered, monitored by the Halal Monitoring Committee, and cut the way you ask for it at 26-28 City Road, Bradford. Collect in about two hours or local delivery within seven miles.
Order halal beef onlineWhat HMC certified means