COOKING DIFFERENT CUTS OF BEEF
After the story, see the recipe for Two-Heat Top Sirloin Steaks, which uses two different dry-heat methods to finish a beautiful piece of beef.
When you think about it, we have two ways only to heat beef in order to eat it, dry ways and wet ways.
Dry heat ways with beef are the familiar pan-searing or grilling over flame or other heat.
Wet ways include any sort of braise, of which the stew is the most traditional, but also any use of a liquid to heat a pot roast in a slow-cooker or pressure cooker.
I submit that many a straightforward oven “roast” is also a wet way, even though a hunk of beef is merely placed inside a hot, dry oven. That so-called dry heat cooking coaxes moisture from within the beef roast by breaking down—in essence, making into moisture—elements such as fat, cartilage and other connective tissue that slowly wet-cook the roast, along with the oven’s dry heat. A salt-based rub (tellingly termed, on occasion, “a dry brine”) just wheedles more wet from the meat.
But the true rub comes from having to choose the correct cut of beef to which to apply either dry or wet heat. Cuts of beef such as the tenderloin are ill-served as pot roasts; likewise, straightaway slapping on the grill a thick eye of round is a costly mistake.
But how to choose correctly when butchers give so many—truly an unwieldy plethora—of names to cuts of beef? The other day, just at my neighborhood Safeway, I found beef steaks labeled “flat iron,” “tri-tip,” “chuck eye tenders” (as distinct from the mere “chuck tenders” nearby?), “cross rib tender,” as well as the mainline “T-bone,” “brisket” and “top sirloin” and so on.
Grill ‘em or braise ‘em? Don’t easily know.
In a big way, it helps to know from where on the beef carcass (usually a steer’s, but sometimes a heifer’s) comes the meat. In one axiom of the cook’s trade, “The higher off the hoof, the tenderer the meat.” (Easy exceptions are several parts of both the round and the chuck, not to say the tongue or cheek.)
“When a carcass is broken down,” says Justin Brunson, founder of Brunson Meat Co., “it’s split down the middle and then each half into four pieces.” Often enough, however, smaller cuts of beef (such as steaks) do not reference these primal or sub-primal cuts.
A bigger issue is that large sections of a primal such as the chuck, for example, can be very tough while other sections of it are rather tender.
One key to finding more tender and better value portions of any beef is to discover what used to be called “butcher cuts,” those parts of the carcass that only butchers knew about and hence saved back for themselves and their families.
Note that the butchers weren’t merely selfish. Many of those so-called butcher cuts were too closely associated with (and often, in fact, were part of) larger and less desirable sections of beef such as the shoulder or the diaphragm.
“One of those butcher cuts,” Brunson points out, “the tri-tip, comes out of the sirloin and so does the sirloin cap” (this latter found often in Latin markets as “picanha,” “picaña” or “bistec de palomilla”). He adds, “the hanger steak is another [butcher’s cut], and so is the flat iron.” The hanger steak is so named because it “hangs” from the toughly muscled diaphragm (in a sense more correctly, the diaphragm hangs from it) and the flat iron resembles an old-fashioned laundry iron.
If you’ve got a butcher in the vein of a Brunson at your disposal, you’re in luck and may simply ask them from where comes the cut of beef and about it. But if you’re like most of us, it’s you who will need to educate yourself, something I find people sadly reluctant to do.
But that’s what online search engines are for and they are simply great at their job. Because my butcher is, often enough, google.com, I can research and find pretty much anything I’d like to know about any cut of meat and certainly many recipes by which to cook it.
RECIPE: Two-heat Top Sirloin Steaks
Makes 2
Ingredients
2 top sirloin beef steaks, each about 1 and 1/2-inch thick (also known as boneless sirloin cap off, or sirloin butt center-cut, or “dinner steak”)
Good quality, flat-flaked sea salt such as Maldon or Cyprus Flake, or a fleur de sel salt or Diamond Crystal kosher salt
Directions
If the meat's coming from the refrigerator, unwrap it and allow it to get up to room temperature, anywhere from 30-45 minutes. Salt the steaks liberally on both sides (which means just to the point where you're beginning to feel uncomfortable about the amount). Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
Coat a cast iron (preferred) or heavy-bottomed oven-safe skillet with a cooking fat that can tolerate torrid heat (avocado, safflower, soybean or ghee all do nicely). Put the skillet atop the burner and get it very hot.
Plop the steaks into the pan so that they don't touch each other and sear them for 2 minutes on each side (or for 90 seconds a side if the steaks are less than 1 and 1/2 inch thick). Use tongs, not a fork. Then straightaway, place the skillet into the oven.
After 3 minutes, test the steaks at their centers with an instant-read thermometer. The final cooking time will depend on the thickness of the steaks, their starting temperature and the sturdiness of the skillet. It may take 5 minutes rather than 3-4.
Pull the steaks from the oven when the internal temperature registers 5 degrees below the following desired temperatures for doneness: rare, 120; medium-rare, 130; medium, 140; and (although you really oughtn't go here or further up) 150 for medium-well; and 160 for well-done. Immediately on removing the steaks from the oven, tong them from the skillet and place them on a cutting board.
Now, let the steaks rest. Follow the advice of chef Anthony Bourdain: “It should rest on the board, meaning sit there at room temperature for 5 to 7 minutes, at which point, stay away from it. The steak continues to cook in these crucial moments and it must be left alone to ensure perfect distribution of the juices inside. All the difference in the world between a good steak and a totally messed-up steak is going on in that period of time that you're just doing nothing. Don't wrap it in foil, don't cover it, don't poke it, don't prod it, don't even look at it. Just let it sit there. Leave it alone, and you will be rewarded.”