What is the Teres Major?
If you are reading this site there is a good chance you are familiar with all the standard steakhouse cuts like ribeye, NY strip, filet, and porterhouse. You have probably also run across cuts like flank steak, skirt steak, brisket and sirloin in your meat eating adventures. But have you ever heard of the teres major?
The teres major is also called the shoulder tender, mock tender or petite tender but I like teres major since it sounds cooler. This cut comes from the shoulder or chuck of the steer. When most people think of the chuck they think of a chuck roast or a chuck steak which if a fairly tough cut that has a lot of connective tissue in it. As a result it is usually relegated to pot roast duty and I will say there are few things better than a nice pot roast. But in the hands of a skilled butcher there are some individual muscles in the chuck that are very tender and flavorful on their own.
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Most teres major roasts are 12-16 ozs so they are a fairly small cut and it takes the hands of a skilled butcher to extract it from the chuck. This muscle helps connect the shoulder blade to the front shoulder of the steer and lives fairly close to the flat iron. It is called the “mock tender” because it resembles a smaller version of a tenderloin roast which is where the coveted filet mignon comes from. It is second only to the tenderloin when it comes to tenderness but I think it has a much better flavor than a tenderloin or filet.
The above pic is two American Wagyu Teres Major from Snake River Farms. You won’t find this cut in your local grocery store meat case and unless you have an awesome butcher you probably won’t find it there either. The butcher really needs to know what they are doing to extract this muscle from the shoulder. If you give me a side of beef I could probably get you a ribeye or NY strip but I would have no idea where to start to carve out this muscle. Online retailers like Snake River Farms will probably be your best bet if you want to try this cut. Porter Road also carries this cut.
Generally speaking the teres major will be quite a bit less expensive than its tenderloin cousin. Just so you can see an apples to apples comparison the American Wagyu tenderloin at Snake River is about $50 per pound and the teres major is about $24 per pound. If you can find it at a local butcher you will see that it is around half of what a filet or tenderloin costs.
How to cook a Teres Major
I have wanted to try this cut for quite a while and finally pulled the trigger and ordered some a couple weeks back. I really wanted to taste the meat so I only seasoned it with some kosher salt and let it sit in the fridge overnight to dry brine. This allows the salt to really penetrate the meat and flavor it all the way through instead of just on the surface.
I knew I wanted to keep this cut on the medium rare side of things and since the ends tapered quite a bit I wanted to make sure those weren’t overcooked. If you have a sous vide machine that would be a great way to cook these. But since I don’t I went with a better option: the reverse sear. In a nutshell, with the reverse sear method you cook over indirect heat at a fairly low temperature (usually 225-250) and then finish it with a super hot sear to get some nice Malliard reaction on the outside of the meat. If you do it correctly you will have a nice, even pink color throughout the meat and a nice crust on the outside.
You can do this in the oven but I did it on my Weber Kettle.
Man, my kettle needs a good cleaning. Anyway you can see in the above pic I have about 10 lit coals in my Slow n Sear (if you own a Weber Kettle you NEED one of these) and the meat on the other side of the kettle. If I control my vents properly (about 1/4 of the way open on top and bottom) I should hit 225-250 degrees. I measure that with my Thermoworks Smoke which is a dual probe thermometer. You can see I have one probe in the meat and an air probe clipped to the grate. When the meat reaches about 110-115 degrees I will pull it off the heat and that should take around an hour but don’t go by time! Go by temperature.
One great thing about the Thermoworks Smoke is that it has a remote receiver so I can be inside getting the rest of the meal ready while the meat cooks and I don’t need to be outside babysitting the temps. You can see below that the top number is the air temp in the grill and the bottom is the meat. There are alarms you can set to go off if the temps get too high or too low but I usually turn those off for a cook like this.
When there is about 20 minutes left to cook (the meat will be 70-80 degrees or so) I light up another chimney of charcoal to get ready for the sear. When the meat hits 110 or so I pull it off and tent with foil while I get the grill ripping hot. The full chimney of charcoal goes into the Slow n Sear and it probably hits around 800 degrees or so. Then the meat goes on over the super hot coals.
Every 30 seconds or so I flip the meat to get some nice, even color on the meat. Since I am not a fan of grill marks (aka burnt lines of meat) I like to spin the grate when I flip the meat so the grill grate isn’t super hot. There is still a ton of heat coming off the coals but the grate itself isn’t hot enough to burn the meat. While I am searing the meat I like to check the temp every minute or so with my Thermopop thermometer as you can see below.
All in all it will take probably 4-5 minutes to get a nice sear on the meat and you are shooting for an internal temperature of around 120-125. I would probably err on the low end of that for this cut. One nice thing about this cut is it shrinks up while cooking and gets fatter so some of the thinner ends kind of plump up a bit. After you pull it off the grill tent it again and let it rest for a few minutes before slicing.
I probably could have rested this a couple more minutes but I was impatient and the kids were clamoring for dinner. You can see how the muscle fibers are quite a bit coarser than a filet or a tenderloin but it was definitely one of the more tender cuts I have ever eaten. The flavor was much more complex than a tenderloin as well. It is a bit more mineraly and livery (in the best way possible) like a flat iron or a flank but it also had a great beefy flavor. And since it was cooked on my kettle that has all kinds of good smokey buildup from some low and slow cooks (brisket, pork butt, bacon, etc.) there was a nice, subtle smoke flavor as well. All in all I was very impressed with this cut and will definitely add the teres major into the beef cooking rotation.
You could use a rub like Meathead’s Big Bad Beef Rub for a bit of spice or something like Hardcore Carnivore Black rub but don’t go too crazy with the seasonings. Salt and pepper brings plenty of flavor.
If you haven’t tried the teres major I would suggest ordering some from Snake River Farms and giving it a shot. I have never seen it locally but you can ask your butcher and see if they can bring some in for you. If you do try it let me know what you think. I would love to hear some other opinions of this cut.
