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

Beef

Beef is favored for many reasons; in fact, our bodies just might be wired to crave it. You might coat a tenderloin in a horseradish crust for company during the holidays, look forward to ordering a crusty rib eye when you go to a steakhouse, pile a beef burger high with your favorite toppings, seek out supreme brisket with an impressive smoke ring, or cook a warming beef stew on a winter night. The meat for these timeless (and, we’d say, essential) recipes comes from the animal with the most primal cuts, each of which cooks a bit differently.

Veal

Veal has long been revered in Europe for its supreme tenderness and delicate flavor; here in the United States, it’s not as popular and is seen in restaurants more often than home kitchens. But veal doesn’t have to be fancy (or pricey); you can make veal dishes easily at home. The delicate meat takes well to delicate flavors—often those from France—and more collagen-rich veal cuts, like those from the shoulder and shank, are nice when stewed.

Pork

Pork is the mose beloved meat internationally, though it’s the runner-up to beef in popularity in the United States. While beef’s flavor lives on a simple spectrum from milder with little fat to beefier with more fat, pork possesses a range of flavors, depending on where the cut is from: Pork can be mild and almost poultry-like if from the loin, fatty and unctuous around the belly, sweet and robust from the shoulder, meaty and rich from the back end.