Blog assignment #1 purchasing meat

My local grocery store Hong Tai super market is located on 2555 Victoria Park Avenue. Has a large selection of meat cuts for a cheap price it also has a wide selection of fish and charcuterie.  My chose of animal is beef cattle and the cut is ox-tail. The reason why I chose ox-tail as my cut is because ox-tail is cheap piece of cut and has gelatin-rich meat.

http://www.blogto.com/listings/grocery/upload/2011/10/20111020-hong-tai-supermarket.jpg

          The Cattle was first domesticated 10 000 years ago and was raised in all region from America to Asia. Study shows that there are currently 134 different types of cattle and the average weight 60-100 pounds when they are born and are slaughter after 6-10 months and the average weight before there slaughter is 450-700 pounds. There are two sexes of cattle male and female the male is used for meat, leather and sports. The female is used for dairy and meat as well.

                          

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/beef

The ox-tail comes from cattle’s tail and has an average weight of 2-4 pounds. Ox-tail is a bony cut and the meat is very tough but the meat is very gelatinous and rich. The best method to cook ox tail is any type of slow cooking method examples like stewing and braising.  The reason why ox tail is best for slow cooking because the tail has a lot of connective tissue if you were to pan fry or grill the ox-tail it would still be tough to eat. So slow cooking is the best method for cooking ox tail because it’s the best way to break down connective tissue without burning the ox-tail. When I’m buying ox-tail I make sure that the cut does not have an odor and it has a nice red colour. 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Raw_oxtail-01.jpg

http://caribbeanpot.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/guinness-oxtails-13.jpg