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Filetmignon Steak From Japan - Grade A 5 - One 12 oz. Steak.
Welcome to 1-800-Kobe Beef. "The Wagyu Beef" - also known as "Kobe Beef" is the ultimate masterpiece of Japanese Beef. Wagyu are raised with pride and care all over Japan, and they provide truly world class high quality beef. Wagyu is strictly graded and sorted info five classes by professionals from the Japan Meat Grading Association from A 1 to A 5. A5 is the highest grade of Japanese Wagyu Beef.
One of the most important factors for grading beef quality is "marbling", which refers to the fine white streaks of fat that run through lean beef and enhance flavor and tenderness. "The Wagyu" has excellent marbling that puts it among the world's top class. Furthermore, the fat in "The WAGYU" melts at just 77F (25C), a lower temperature than any other beef. This explains why "The WAGYU" melts in your mouth for a sensational burst of flavor from the very first bite.
Our Japanese Wagyu Beef is legally imported from Japan and inspected by USDA on arrival. Our Filetmignon Steaks are cut from Japanese Tenderloin at local USDA inspected facility in Los Angeles, CA. All our steaks are individually stamped as required by USDA guidelines. Our Japanese Filetmignon Steaks are juiciest and tender of all the steaks. This marvelously rich, yet mellow boneless cut comes from the heart of the short loin where the most abundant marbling, tender texture and succulent taste is found. This steakhouse classic goes by several different names such as "Tenderloin steaks" as well as "Chateaubriand". Bottom line: This is a boneless steak cut from the top loin, the most tender.
Filetmignon is a steak cut of beef taken from the smaller end of the tenderloin, or psoas major of the beef carcass, usually a steer or heifer. In French, this cut can also be called filet de bœuf, which translates in English to beef fillet. The tenderloin runs along both sides of the spine, and is usually harvested as two long snake-shaped cuts of beef. The tenderloin is sometimes sold whole. When sliced along the short dimension, creating roughly round cuts, and tube cuts, the cuts (fillets) from the small forward end are filetmignon. Those from the center are tournedos; however, some butchers in the United States label all types of tenderloin steaks "filetmignon."The tenderloin is the most tender cut of beef and is also arguably the most desirable and therefore the most expensive. The average steer or heifer provides no more than 500 grams of filetmignon. Because the muscle is not weight-bearing, it contains less connective tissue, which makes it tender. However, it is generally not as flavorful as some other cuts of beef (example, primal rib cuts), and is often wrapped in bacon to enhance flavor, and/or is served with a sauce. The same cut of beef can also be called: French: filetmignon or filet de bœuf French (Québec): filetmignon English (U.S.): medallions, tenderloin steak English (UK, Ireland): fillet steak English (Australia, New Zealand): eye fillet Italian: filetto Indonesian: has dalam Swedish: filetmignon Norwegian: indrefilet Spanish: filetemiñón or filetmignon Dutch: ossenhaas Bahasa Melayu: hujung batang pinang Portuguese: filé or filé mignon Russian: филе миньон Filetmignon may be cut into 1- to 2-inch-thick portions, then grilled and served as-is. High heat is the usual method for cooking the filetmignon, either grilling, pan frying, broiling, or roasting. Traditionally in European and American restaurants, fillets are most often served in a cognac cream sauce, au poivre with peppercorns, or in a red wine reduction. Bacon is often used in cooking filetmignon because of the low levels of fat found in the cut, as fillets have low levels of marbling, or intramuscular fat. Bacon is wrapped around the fillet and pinned closed with a wooden toothpick. This adds flavor and keeps the fillet from drying out during the cooking process. Traditional cooking calls for the filetmignon to be seared on each side using intense heat for a short time and then transferred to a lower heat to cook the meat all the way through. Filetmignon is often served rarer than other meats. Those preferring a more well-done steak can request a "butterflied" filet, meaning that the meat is cut down the middle and opened up to expose more of it to heat during the cooking process.
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Kobe Beef History
Eating meat from four-legged - animals was prohibited in Japan for more than a thousand years prior to 1868.
- This ban was especially strict during the Edo Period (1603-1867). Buddhist
- influences were primarily responsible for this dietary restriction, but other
- cultural factors and the need to protect draught animals in times of famine may
- have reinforced the taboo. After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the new leaders
- of Japan wanted, among other things, to reduce traditional social barriers and
- to encourage the adoption of beneficial Western habits. There may also have
- been a desire to weaken the power of the Buddhists. Lifting the ban on the
- eating of meat was a small step towards these objectives. Nevertheless, it must
- have astounded the nobility of the day to see the young Emperor Meiji eating
- beef. Meiji (1852-1912), emperor of Japan (1867-1912), born Prince Mutsuhito
- and the 122nd emperor in the traditional count, whose accession to the throne
- marked the beginning of a national revolution known as the Meiji Restoration.
Despite the formal rescinding of the prohibition - against the eating of meat in the late 1860s, the consumption of meat remained
- extremely low for another century. Until very recent times meat (niku in Japanese) usually meant pork in eastern
- Japan (roughly from Tokyo to Hokkaido) and beef in western Japan (from
- Nagoya/Osaka to Kyushu). Historically, and even today, the people of the Kinki
- Region (Kyoto, Kobe, and Osaka) have been the heaviest beef eaters.
For millennia the people of Japan lived on a diet - of rice, vegetables, and seafood eaten with hashi
- (chopsticks). Although the meat taboo was removed over a hundred years earlier,
- by 1980 the average Japanese ate only 5.1 kg of beef (carcass weight basis). In
- some Western countries, where income levels are comparable with those in Japan,
- the average person commonly devours ten times this quantity each year. Although
- the younger generation has grown up with Western cuisine, knife, and fork, most Japanese still enjoy beef
- best when it is prepared as very thin slices, cooked in the traditional manner
- and eaten with hashi.
From about 1955 onwards, the mechanization of rice - cultivation led to an increase in the availability of beef, as large numbers of
- draught cattle were fattened and slaughtered. At the same time the rapid
- economic growth, which started with the Korean War boom, was gaining momentum.
- People could afford the luxury of meat more often.
Wagyu in Cows in Matsusaka are bought in Tajima - (Hyogo), Shimane and Shikoku. There is no breeding in Matsusaka.
The Origins of Kobe Beef The creation of genuine Kobe (or Matsuzaka or Omi) - beef is a mystical folk art which may have been practiced as an underground
- cult before 1868. Some sources claim that certain daimyo and even some shoguns enjoyed especially fattened beef from
- Hihone hab (now Shiga Prefecture, the home of Omi beef). Most Japanese believe,
- however, that the art of producing Omi, Matusaka, or Kobe beef cannot be traced
- back to feudal times.
Kobe beef traditionally comes from Wagyu cattle. “Wa” is a very old Japanese language term for Japan, or - things Japanese, and one of the meanings of “gyu” is beef, with an “on the hoof” connotation. There are four
- commercial breeds of Wagyu.
These four breeds are now considered indigenous to - Japan but are not genuinely native
- cattle. There are two isolated populations of native cattle in existence. The
- Mishima wild cattle on Mishima Island (located in the Sea of Japan off
- Yamaguchi Prefecture) have never been crossed with modern European breeds.
- While they represent a genuine genetic curiosity, as of 1983 there were fewer than 40 head. The second and more numerous
- are a group of wild cattle on Kuchinoshima Island south-west of Kagoshima Prefecture.
- The progenitors of both the Mishima and Kuchinoshima cattle were probably
- brought to Japan by the ancestors of the modern Japanese people more than 2,000
- years ago. Biochemical and genetic tests indicate that the native cattle are
- more closely related to the cattle of Northern Europe and Scandinavia than they are to the cattle
- indigenous to Taiwan, the Philippines, and other South East Asian Countries.
The four modern Japanese breeds are the result of - a substantial infusion of European blood during the Meiji Era, together with a
- government-sponsored selection programme initiated in 1919. For several decades
- prior to 1910, there was a great interest in importing European breeds to cross
- with native cattle. The basic aim was to improve the native strains for draught
- purposes, but better meat production was also a consideration. Exotic breeds
- were extremely popular, and the price of
- pure-bred and cross-bred exotic animals often reached unreasonable levels,
- until the bubble burst in 1910. After this date, the importation of European
- breeds went out of fashion.
After World War I, the Japanese Government decided - to encourage the selection and registration of cattle exhibiting superior
- traits of both native and foreign types. There was a considerable gene pool to
- draw upon, as a wide range of European blood had been introduced to Japan. This
- variation, together with the original differences among the native cattle,
- permitted selection according to different criteria in various parts of the
- country. After World War II, the National Government moved to rationalize the
- registration process and formally recognized three major Wagyu types or breeds:
- Japanese Black, Japanese Brown, and Japanese Poll. The National Wagyu Cattle
- Registration Association was established in 1948.
The Japanese Black breed included several fairly - distinct types, and this is still the case today (e.g., Tottori, Tajima, and Hiroshima strains). The Japanese
- Shorthorn was not formally established until 1957.
After careful selection and breeding over the last - five decades, there are slight differences in the concept of the true type of each breed, but many similarities. All
- four breeds have been selected for beef production alone for more than forty
- years. In all four breeds, the aim is to
- produce a medium-sized, beef-type animal. All of the breeds are humpless, but the bulls tend to develop a
- marked crest. While the ideal mature body weight and height at the withers
- differ marginally between the four breeds, the targets for the Japanese Black are
- typical.
While it is hard to generalize, two traits of the - Japanese Black often cited as disadvantageous are their narrow pin bones and
- their relatively poor milking capacity. The narrow pin bones create calving
- difficulties if the cows are crossed with bulls of the large-framed European
- breeds (such as Holstein or Charolais). The poor milking ability increases the
- costs of raising feeder calves since the calves often need artificial
- supplements.
On the other hand, the Japanese Blacks (in - particular the Tajima strain) are noted for their capacity to produce beef with
- a high degree of fat marbling (or sashi).
- It is this characteristic more than any other which accounts for the steady
- increase in the popularity of the Japanese Black breed.
According to the website of the California BBQ - Association, "In order to protect its domestic beef industry, the Japanese
- government imposed strict laws that prohibited the export of any living
- Japanese Wagyu cattle. However, in 1976, four Wagyu animals were imported into
- the U.S.: two Tottori Black Wagyu and two Kumamoto Red Wagyu bulls. Then in
- 1993, two male and three female Tajima cattle were imported, and 35 male and
- female cattle (consisting of both red and black Wagyu) were imported in 1994.
"Most Kobe Beef today is bred and raised in - California and Australia. For example, Harris Ranch in California is contracted
- with beef producers in Kobe to breed and raise their cattle in California,
- where land and grain is relatively inexpensive. The cattle are raised and fed under the exacting
- specifications for Kobe Beef. When the cattle are
- almost ready for slaughter, it is shipped to Kobe, Japan, where its feeding is
- completed, and the cattle are slaughtered.
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