Agreed, but makes an awesome beef stew and the dogs are happy with the shank bones after beng cooked for hours.
Huh. The shanks I get are reasonably fatty with intramuscular fat and act quite like chuck to cook. Good amount of collagen and silky mouthfeel. But I also look specifically for good marbling.
So do I (we get grass fed beef). Unlike a pot roast, the shanks break apart into little pieces hence why I use it for stew and not a roast.
Not easy to find anything but very lean shanks around here. I could talk to the butcher about finding something. This is not the Midwest, we’re getting beef taken to markets far from here as soon as possible without building up much fat. That saves cost for the farmer and shipping costs for the dealers. Choice tender cuts for steak are very expensive. If it’s not prime or close in quality I don’t want a lot of it.
Chuck steaks were mentioned above and that leanness makes them nearly useless as steaks. As a child we ate chuck steaks often because my parents were cheapskates and had no good sense about what quality meat was. The meat was fattier with real marbling which used to make it feasible. You can pound and pierce the huck steaks we get now enough to make it edible but I’d rather use it for pot roast and chili.
Rump roasts and steaks were inexpensive for a while but then the Picanha steaks became trendy and the price reflects that. The rump is tender meat to some degree and has a delicious fat cap on it and can be slow cooked but still can be cooked fast with high heat and still tender enough to enjoy like a steak. Not melt in your mouth tender like a rib steak but still enjoyable and occasionally on sale for a decent price.
Ah, yeah, it’s not the right shape for pot roasts, either. I either cut them into chunks or cook them whole, bone-in, like an osso bucco or something.
Yeah, I do occasionally find shank that is on sale and like pure red all the way through. I don’t buy that shank. Looks like select grade (there’s no grading listed on those.) I’ve even seen utility grade at some markets around here, but that’s usually for steaks. I have no idea who is buying utility grade steaks. If I’m going for steak, it has to be choice, at least. and I look for a choice that looks borderline prime to me. Prime is harder to find as it mostly goes to restaurants, but Costco and Sam’s will have it, at least. The normal supermarkets don’t usually stock it. Whole Foods will have it too.
I can get cheaper cuts of actual meat, including beef, for 6.50 or less. So that wouldn’t save me any money.
To me the fake meat products generally just taste like salt and whatever spices have been added. There may possibly be some version that doesn’t; I haven’t tasted them all, and the market keeps changing. I think the health issue is more up in the air than it looks, and almost certainly also depends on the individual.
If I’ve got beef shanks, I’ll often add one to a pot roast; they cook well the same way, and as the pot roast cuts I get are generally boneless the shank bone adds even more flavor.
They’re also a great addition to making chicken broth. My mother always adds one shank piece to her chicken soup — it’s common in Polish cooking. Also, if making stew, even if I debone and cut up the shank first before cooking, I make sure to cook it along with the leftover shank bones.
So, not cheap per pound, but let’s talk per serving of bavette steak. We recently found this at our butcher. $15/lb (hear me out) BUT it is so flavorful and easy to cut thin against the grain that we get an easy 4 servings per pound if not more. Thai chili beef. Tacos. Just on its own. It’s related to hanger and flank steak, but a very loose texture that love marinade or sauce. Trying it in stroganoff tonight. And no waste, unlike shanks or whole chickens…
I just discovered a new bargain meat - ham ends. I have not seen it before. The supermarket deli cuts the ends off the new hams plus a few small diameter slices and sells them for $2.99/lb. The hams are $8 a pound and up. You get whatever hams they just opened. The bag I just bought has at least three different types of ham and it is great.
A similar version of this is Farmland Smoked Spiral Ham Slices and Pieces. Bargain priced and literally the best ham we have ever eaten. It shows up at Walmart maybe once a year and I buy all I can and freeze them. I emailed to Farmland to ask what ham they used so I could just buy the ham. It is their special banquet ham and they only sell it for catered events. They do not sell it retail.
I agree with beef chuck/pork shoulder. If you live alone and don’t like to reheat food, cut the raw meat up into one-person portions and freeze it. Instead of cooking the entire roast, you can make a small stew fresh each time.
Meat ends and cheese ends are a staple at my house. The bigger European groceries here have magnificent delis with a great diversity of ends, feta scraps, smoked salmon trimmings, smoked Polish sausage assortment chunks. Interestingly, the meat end all seem to be the same $2.99/lb around here, too, cheese ends usually 3.50 or $4/lb.
What waste? All the leftover stuff goes into stock, of course! I opt for bone-in cuts most of the time for this reason.
-nods along with pulykamell-
The bone bag / scrap bag in the freezer is your friend. And back to the OP, it’s a great place if you find you have bought more than you’re going to cook and eat. Freeze that spare drumstick, thigh, or wing you have after breaking down a bird. Or the meaty trimmings of any critter. Next time you want, it can be stock, extra fat or collagen in a stew, or other purposes.
Note, this is, of course, an advantage to us who have large freezers, especially dedicated side freezers. Plenty of people are not so equipped, and then it gets a lot more complicated.
I don’t disagree, but stock fills the palate not the stomach. 5 oz meat plus a gallon of stock out of one # of shanks works well if it’s stock you’re primarily after… Plus you need to add veggies and herbs which do go to compost, so $$. Plus, it’s probably not a pound of shanks–the ratios for really good stock are kinda crazy.
I too have never noticed this
Adding a beef shank to the pot when making chicken broth? Intriguing… 
Here’s a recipe. My mother doesn’t use the vinegar, and she uses a shank with the bone, not just a beef bone as stated in that recipe. Otherwise, everything else down to the celery root and allspice berries looks the same.
That recipe looks delicious, thanks! Filing it away. I like the idea of adding allspice to the stock-- I’ve taken to adding allspice to a lot of beef-based dishes lately.
RE: the vinegar, I’ve long heard the acidity helps to render the collagen from the bones, but I’m skeptical how much difference a tablespoon can really make. Seems like I’ve forgotten to add vinegar in the past and still had a nice stock full of collagen, and added the vinegar and sometimes had a disappointingly thin stock. So who knows.
Yeah, I get plenty of gel out of my stocks without a problem, so I’ve never seen the need to bother with vinegar.
The website below says (based on testing) the vinegar is mostly useless. It might barely improve things like calcium content but mostly it does nothing.