NEW YORK - With butchering expertise that goes back five generations, the Lobel family knows meat.
The family, which has owned and operated Lobel's Prime Meats in New York City since 1954, now sells their gourmet meats online. The Lobels also have written several books on meat handling and preparation.
The family recently published "The Lobel Family Guide to Grilling," a free, 22-page guide that offers advice on everything from choosing a grill to the use of marinades and spice rubs.
The guide suggests the following when choosing meat:
GROUND MEAT: It should be rosy-colored and evenly mixed with creamy white particles of fat, and should not have browned sections.
BEEF: It should have a minimum of cream-colored outer fat. Marbling, the delicate streaks of intramuscular fat running through the meat, should be even. It should have soft-looking, reddish-colored bones. The meat should be firm, fine-textured and a light cherry red. Dry-aged beef is best for virtually all applications.
LAMB: It should be fine-textured, firm and lean. The meat should be pink with a thin white layer of firm external fat. Cross sections of bone should be red, moist and porous.
VEAL: It should be firm, velvety and moist, but not watery. The flesh should be almost white to a very light pink and the fat covering the meat should be slight and whitish in color. The bones should be small in width, bright red, as though full of blood, and fairly soft to the touch.
PORK: It should be pinkish-gray and lean with firm, white fat and red-streaked bones.
CHICKEN: It should be evenly colored with skin that is slightly yellow (a good sign that the bird was fed corn), well-developed breasts and rounded thighs.
Electronic copies of "The Lobel Family Guide to Grilling" can be downloaded from the Web at www.lobels.com or the guide can be obtained by sending an e-mail request to grillingguidelobels.com or by mailing a request to Grilling Guide, Lobel's of New York, 774 Jay St., Rochester, NY 14611.
