- Hey Ben. - Whatcha' got here? - I gotta beef leg. - Yoo, you sure do. You and I have been talking
about things we love about a beef leg that no one really knows about. We're gonna show you our
favorite cuts on this entire group of muscles which
is generally disregarded or kind of unknown to most people. - The bulk of the beef leg
is made up of four muscles. We are goin' straight to the shank. - [Ben] Yep. - We love it for two reasons. Personally, I love the actual beef shank. Super tough, lots of collagen,
tough tendons going through. Takes a while to cook, but the
cheapest muscle you can buy. It's a fantastic braise and it
has a big marrow bone in it. It looks really cool. Ben, why do you like the beef shank? Personally Brent, I like it
because buried in these muscles right here, you can't even see it, is a small steak that's
usually only about a pound called a Merlot steak. It's one of my top three
steaks on the animal. The great thing about it
is normally kind of shucked as either ground or braised. But when you cut out the
steak it is, I think, one of the best bangs for your buck. Rather then Brent's four hour braise, it's a four minute steak. You wanna cook it super rare. It has zero fat, but that doesn't matter. There's so much flavor
in it and it's so tender. It's a phenomenal steak
and it's super cheap. Generally people don't think
too much about the shank. No one really gives it
that much thought or care. But, us being a whole animal butcher shop, we have to care about every single thing. We try and find value
where other people don't. We usually break the legs first, which gives us our first
opportunity to know what the flavor is like on the animal. Brent, why do we want to know? - One of the most exciting
things we think about getting meat deliveries every week is that, yah we get it from the same farms. But different breeds of animal. Different time of year. There's gonna be different things. Different characteristics. We just want to taste it. Just to know how tender it is. There's a lot of factors. - Yah, like if you and I
were born on the same day, it doesn't mean our musculature is gonna be exactly the same. Even if we ate the same things. I'll just do a little, a little bit. Don't need very much. Just do a little taste. A little dab will do ya'. We just add a little bit a salt. This is our first chance
to actually get an idea of all the factors Brent talked about. Obviously the age, the breed,
how the seasons worked out, how much rain was there, all
these things are gonna factor into this. - Cheers.
- Cheers. That flavor's fantastic. - Nice and tender,
really clean, very beefy. - The first thing we do, I'll stand this up so you
can get a better look, is clip this tendon right here. For you that would be the achilles tendon. And what that does, if
you look right in there, it creates a natural seam. And we're just gonna follow that seam all the way up to the knee. And then we're gonna cut it off. (upbeat music) That's how you do that in
exactly 15 seconds flat. Now we have Brent's cut. I want him my cut. (upbeat music) - [Brent] Alright, so
what are you doing here? - Gettin' my sweet sweet Merlot bro. - This is the actual calf
muscle, which is pretty wild that you would take it off. You can see all of the silver skin that Ben's gonna trim out. But inside of that, you
can peel it apart and get a super tender steak. - You can even see from the color on it. Look at the richness of the color. That's flavor. (upbeat music) While we were not on camera, you said that you make this often. - [Brent] Yah. - So 16 years we've known each other. I've never known that you make this often. Because why? - Because you don't pay attention to me. - Okay, I would say because
you don't share anything about your personal life, but let's agree to disagree. - Have you ever made this for me? - Touche. - Let's do this. We have the four hour and
we have the four minutes. Both from the shank. - Yeah, this is I think
the perfect way of showing the diversity of an animal
all within essentially a couple of inches from each other. - True value that can be found if you go and talk to your butcher. - How much did this come out to? - I think it was around 14 or 15 dollars. - And Merlot we sell for $15.99. If I put a value on it, knowing what I know about it
and loving it as much as I do, it's easily like New York
Strip or Ribeye price. - I'm ready to eat it. - Okay let's it it. - Great. (upbeat music) - That's all the prep I have to do. - [Brent] Want a pan? - Yes please. I'm not gonna wait for the
pan to get all the way hot before putting this in. With certain muscles they contract a lot when you put them in a
really really hot pan. This is one of those muscles so it'd actually end up
being a third smaller, but a lot thicker. By putting it in a little
bit earlier, we avoid that and it stays a little bit flatter. (upbeat music) - Okay Brent, I finally
cooked a Merlot for you. - It's about time. Only 10 years in the waiting. - [Ben] 16 I guess total. - Okay. Nice, that is rare. What I like, pretty
much raw in the middle. You just want that cooked
outside like we have and then really rare on the inside. - This is an interesting
cut that most grass-fed, grass-finished steaks you do
want to cook to medium-rare. There's only a couple that you
wanna eat super-duper rare. And this is one of them. - If you cook this too much,
it ends up getting too chewy. But you can actually kind
of see the way it's changing during the cook on the outer edges. It starts to look almost like
cooked brisket or something. - Right. - The muscles are starting to break apart. But if you look in the middle, it's super smooth and the
texture even looks more tender, it feels more tender than
the outside musculature does. Ready to eat this? - Yeah. - [Ben] Don't say I never
did anything for you. - You cooked me a steak on
camera that a production company made you do. - Cheers. - Um, good. Wow.
- It's so good. - It's been a minute since
I've had one of these and I was like, "oh,
this is gonna be good." But wow, this is so much better
than I remember it being. - [Ben] Yeah? - It tastes like fatty,
it's almost like buttery and herbaceous. Most super lean steaks, like top-round, you get that mineral
punch that's like livery, that I really like, but this is way more round than that. This is freakin' delicious. Ton of flavor. I would put this up against
any other steak on the animal. It's fantastic. - Brent, what's going
on with your beef shank? Did you sear it off? - [Brent] Yeah. - [Ben] Some onions. - [Brent] Check. - [Ben] Garlic.
- [Brent] Check. - [Ben] Carrots.
- [Brent] Check. - [Ben] Beef stock.
Tomatoes. Set it and forget it. - [Brent] Set it and forget it. - Yep. But you're still doing
a lot of running around, so what else is happening? - Well you asked me to make
a dish, so I'm making a dish. You said, "I've never had this before." That's my version of you. Uh. - That's fairly accurate. - Uhh. - I'm not gonna say that's not, that's pretty good. - [Brent] Yeah. (upbeat music) - [Ben] Did you wash your hands? - [Brent] Nope. Never have. - Tough look. Tough look. This is a dinner for
one in the young house. - I said it's a winter meal, okay? Thank you for the steak. - [Ben] It's no steak on a plate, but I guess this will do. - I made you lunch. - Oh. - Please, enjoy. - That is tender. - So you put four minutes
into our friendship, I put four hours. - Hmm, that's really good. Oh that's really good. I like that it's not falling apart either. I thought you were going to do
it like falling apart tender, but this is, still you
need to cut through it, but it's so tender. - Which is nice, I love pot roast. One of my favorite things. I feel like this is
the best version of it. - It's really good. - I think as an under utilized
cut, putting a little bit of time into it, you can make
a wonderful family style dish for very little money. - We're feeding four people
two of the best cuts we know for under twenty bucks. - Beef leg. - [Brent] Boom, what up. - [Ben] Hey, what up. - For more episodes of
Primetime, click somewhere here. - Or here. - But healthy. - Boys gotta eat.
