I posted this over at our sister site PelletSmoking.com but it applies here as well.
My favorite part of a rib roast or ribeye steak isn't the eye of a ribeye but the meat that surrounds the eye.
It has a few names: top meat, cap meat, spinalis dorsi, scarapelli.
Here's a pic of a steak from the loin of the rib roast commonly referred to as a ribeye. The butchers in my area usually trim off most of the area labeled with a "1" leaving the "Cap", the "Eye" and the area "2".
The cap muscle and the eye muscle are outlined. You can see there are physical differences in the two muscles. The cap meat is darker than the eye meat. The cap is a bit more marbled and there's a texture difference between the two. The cap, IMO, is more tender than the eye and much more flavorful. The area labeled "2" has identical properties to the "Cap" muscle.
As muscles go from one end of a cut to another they rarely stay the same size. Often they start small and end up larger as they progress through a primal cut or the opposite is true.
In respect to the cap or top meat, it starts large at the chuck end (or small end) of a rib roast and the eye starts out smaller. I believe the steak below is from the chuck end. As these two muscles progress through the rib loin toward the short loin the eye muscle gets larger and the cap gets smaller until only the eye remains. This rib "eye" muscle eventually turns into a NY Strip steak further back on the steer.
Anyway, I was discussing the cap meat with my Raley's butcher and he told me out of each chuck primal cut, they get a few steaks from the end of the chuck that connects to the rib primal. They package these steaks as Chuck Eye steaks and refer to them as a poor mans ribeye. Where a ribeye steak in my area will price out on average between $10/lb-$15/lb, the Chuck Eye prices out at $6.49/lb at my Raleys. You can see that on a Chuck Eye steak, the cap meat is larger than the eye. This is the exact same muscle that runs into the rib primal but since it comes from the chuck, it prices out differently. The taste is the same though. Wonderfully tender and full of flavor. As it goes into the Chuck, it starts to take on more tendons making it a bit more difficult to eat but the flavor and tenderness of the meat remains the same.
Out of the package. Again, you can see the physical differences in the two muscles. The Chuck Eye is only available when they butcher up a chuck primal and each chuck primal only yields a few 1" thick chuck eye steaks. They are not available all the time so now every time I'm at my store I cruise the meat section looking for chuck eyes. If not eaten that day they get vacusealed and frozen for when pickings are thin at the meat counter.
My favorite part of a rib roast or ribeye steak isn't the eye of a ribeye but the meat that surrounds the eye.
It has a few names: top meat, cap meat, spinalis dorsi, scarapelli.
Here's a pic of a steak from the loin of the rib roast commonly referred to as a ribeye. The butchers in my area usually trim off most of the area labeled with a "1" leaving the "Cap", the "Eye" and the area "2".
The cap muscle and the eye muscle are outlined. You can see there are physical differences in the two muscles. The cap meat is darker than the eye meat. The cap is a bit more marbled and there's a texture difference between the two. The cap, IMO, is more tender than the eye and much more flavorful. The area labeled "2" has identical properties to the "Cap" muscle.
As muscles go from one end of a cut to another they rarely stay the same size. Often they start small and end up larger as they progress through a primal cut or the opposite is true.
In respect to the cap or top meat, it starts large at the chuck end (or small end) of a rib roast and the eye starts out smaller. I believe the steak below is from the chuck end. As these two muscles progress through the rib loin toward the short loin the eye muscle gets larger and the cap gets smaller until only the eye remains. This rib "eye" muscle eventually turns into a NY Strip steak further back on the steer.
Anyway, I was discussing the cap meat with my Raley's butcher and he told me out of each chuck primal cut, they get a few steaks from the end of the chuck that connects to the rib primal. They package these steaks as Chuck Eye steaks and refer to them as a poor mans ribeye. Where a ribeye steak in my area will price out on average between $10/lb-$15/lb, the Chuck Eye prices out at $6.49/lb at my Raleys. You can see that on a Chuck Eye steak, the cap meat is larger than the eye. This is the exact same muscle that runs into the rib primal but since it comes from the chuck, it prices out differently. The taste is the same though. Wonderfully tender and full of flavor. As it goes into the Chuck, it starts to take on more tendons making it a bit more difficult to eat but the flavor and tenderness of the meat remains the same.
Out of the package. Again, you can see the physical differences in the two muscles. The Chuck Eye is only available when they butcher up a chuck primal and each chuck primal only yields a few 1" thick chuck eye steaks. They are not available all the time so now every time I'm at my store I cruise the meat section looking for chuck eyes. If not eaten that day they get vacusealed and frozen for when pickings are thin at the meat counter.