Beef chaps vs stewing beef: what you are actually buying

Two customers come in on a Saturday. Both want beef for a stew. One leaves with chaps, the other with cubes of stewing beef, and they paid different prices. Here is what each one actually bought.

What chaps are

Chaps come off the shoulder and the chest — the parts of the animal that worked hardest. They are dark, fatty, and full of bone and connective tissue. Cooked quickly they are unpleasant. Cooked for two hours they are the best-value meat in the shop, because that connective tissue turns into gelatin and thickens the sauce on its own.

If your stew has ever tasted thin, the cut was the problem, not the recipe.

What "stewing beef" usually means

In most Nairobi butcheries, stewing beef is trim: pieces from several parts of the animal, cut into cubes, often boneless. It is convenient and it is inconsistent — you do not know what is in the bag, so you cannot know how long it needs.

We cut stewing beef from a named cut instead: usually chuck or top side, diced to the size you ask for. It costs a little more per kilo because there is no bone and no waste, and it behaves the same way every time.

Which one for what

• Chaps: long slow stews, pilau, soup, anything that simmers for two hours. Best flavour per shilling.
• Diced chuck: a stew that should be ready in an hour, a curry, a quick fry. Predictable.
• Mince: burgers, pasta, kofta. Ask for it coarse for burgers, fine for sauce.

The bone question

Bone-in is not a trick to sell you less meat. The bone insulates the meat around it, keeps it moist, and gives the stock its body. A chaps stew without bone tastes flatter, and no amount of stock cube fixes it.

What you should check is the ratio. A good chaps mix is roughly 70% meat to 30% bone and fat. If it is mostly bone, you are paying for the wrong thing — and you are allowed to say so at the counter.

How much to buy

For a stew, allow 250g to 300g per adult with bone in, 200g if boneless. A kilo of chaps feeds four comfortably with ugali and a vegetable.

Both are cut to order at Stall 56, City Market — chaps in pot-sized pieces, chuck diced to whatever size you ask for, and you can order any weight from half a kilo in quarter-kilo steps.