How to make cheapish cuts of beef tender?

AARRRGH

Hello

I hope someone can help me with this. I eat a lot of fillet steak (because it's tender) but it isn't the most flavoursome bit of beef.

I've eaten non-fillet beef in restaurants before and it's been very tender.

How do they do that?! Whenever I buy cheaper cuts of meat it's tough and fatty...

Mr Magnolia

Basically, by cooking it slowly and allowing the fat & tissue to break down which will enhance the flavour of the meat/dish. Stews & the like really suit the cheaper cuts.

AARRRGH

Thanks for the reply.

Would marinating the meat make a difference? The reason I ask is because I've ordered sirloin steak in restaurants and gotten it 10 minutes later, and it's really tender, so they can't have been cooking it for too long...

wilson10

For stews if you boil it long enough, even the toughest meat will melt in your mouth

AARRRGH

What about leaving the meat soaking in water (??) overnight? I do that with chicken breasts (except I use squeezed lemon juice) and it makes them very soft...

Krusty_Clown

Ref: soaking in water - No! That would be a travesty!

Sirloin is a pretty good cut of beef. If you're not finding that it's tender after cooking, it's either a very poor quality piece of meat, or you're not cooking it correctly. Where do you buy it, and how to you cook it?

Marinating it will definitely help (as would using a meat tenderizer), but remember that marinating it will substantially change the flavour. Marinating suggestions:
a) Olive oil, lemon juice, garlic (rosemary)
b) Some mixture with vinegar (such as Worcester sauce)
c) Fruit juices, such as pineapple juice (e.g. a form of jamaican marinade).
d) Soy sauce, ginger, garlic, teryaki etc
Basically anything with acidic content.

If you overcook a lesser cut of beef (in a frying pan) you will make it tougher than it deserves to be. Also if you cook it at too low a temperature the juices will flow, and you will end up stewing the beef (=tough). So high temperature (initially) and don't overcook it.

shrapnel222

AARRRGH wrote: »

Hello

I hope someone can help me with this. I eat a lot of fillet steak (because it's tender) but it isn't the most flavoursome bit of beef.

I've eaten non-fillet beef in restaurants before and it's been very tender.

How do they do that?! Whenever I buy cheaper cuts of meat it's tough and fatty...

the issue here is quality of the meat. if you're buying meat in the supermarket, then it's always going to be tougher. I now buy my meat exclusively from my local butcher and whether i buy sirloin, striploin, ribeye etc, the meat is always incredibly tender. obviously, stews are also a great tenderiser for the really cheap cuts. i've actually got a boeuf bourgignon on the stove for tonight which has now been stewing/cooking for the last 36 hours.:pac:

Krusty_Clown

shrapnel222 wrote: »

the issue here is quality of the meat. if you're buying meat in the supermarket, then it's always going to be tougher. I now buy my meat exclusively from my local butcher and whether i buy sirloin, striploin, ribeye etc, the meat is always incredibly tender. obviously, stews are also a great tenderiser for the really cheap cuts. i've actually got a boeuf bourgignon on the stove for tonight which has now been stewing/cooking for the last 36 hours.:pac:

36 Hours?! What are you cooking with, cow-hide?
Can we all call-over, just to make sure it's ok?;)

wilson10

shrapnel222 wrote: »

the issue here is quality of the meat. if you're buying meat in the supermarket, then it's always going to be tougher. I now buy my meat exclusively from my local butcher and whether i buy sirloin, striploin, ribeye etc, the meat is always incredibly tender. obviously, stews are also a great tenderiser for the really cheap cuts. i've actually got a boeuf bourgignon on the stove for tonight which has now been stewing/cooking for the last 36 hours.:pac:

Did I hear you right 36 hours

shrapnel222

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

36 Hours?! What are you cooking with, cow-hide?
Can we all call-over, just to make sure it's ok?;)

if i'd known i would've made more!!! maybe another time :-))

wilson10 wrote: »

Did I hear you right 36 hours

more or less. put it on to stew in a nice burgundy and stock yesterday morning. cooking with good stewing meat, which just melts in the mouth, and the sauce is now nice and thick. can't wait!!!!

brianthebard

AARRRGH wrote: »

Thanks for the reply.

Would marinating the meat make a difference? The reason I ask is because I've ordered sirloin steak in restaurants and gotten it 10 minutes later, and it's really tender, so they can't have been cooking it for too long...

afaik fillet, sirloin and striploin are all subdivisions of a t-bone, so it shouldn't be surprising that a sirloin was tender. (and even if the first part isn't true, as pointed out above sirloin is a good cut so why wouldn't it be tender?)
Make sure you are buying your meat from a good butchers and that its been hung for 20 or so days. You could always tenderise your meat with a mallet if you wanted. Why are you soaking the chicken fillets in water though? It sounds so odd....chicken is hardly a tough meat I don't really understand the issue there?

AARRRGH

I soak my chicken breasts in lemon juice - makes them lovely and soft, even after a reheat.

I think my problem is Dunnes Stores; I will try my local butcher. Thanks everyone!

Minder

As Krusty said earlier, marinating in pineapple juice will tenderise a piece of beef - the enzymes in pineapple break down the proteins in the beef. Must be fresh pineapple juice.

Another option for tenderizing beef is with the use of a marinade. Soaking various cuts of beef in a marinade is a good method for adding flavor as well as to help tenderize the meat.

A proper marinade should contain an acidic ingredient such as vinegar or wine, oil such as olive oil, and seasonings such as herbs and spices. Citrus fruit juices may be used in place of the vinegar or wine to provide the acidic ingredient that is necessary to soften the tissues of the meat.

Fresh pineapple juice is an excellent ingredient for a marinade because it contains one of the most powerful natural tenderizers, the enzyme bromelin, which is very efficient in breaking down protein. This enzyme is destroyed if it is heated, so when using pineapple juice for the purpose of tenderizing meat, the juice must be fresh. (Any previously cooked or canned pineapple juice has no effect on tenderization.)

The other option is to cook a joint at a much lower temperature for a much longer time. Conventional wisdom says we cook a joint at 200c until the core temperature is about 58c - the result is medium rare beef. Except that we don't measure the core temperature, we just trust that 20 minutes per lb will give that result.

The alternative is to cook the meat until the temperature is 58c at the core at a low heat for a longer time, the meat is wrapped in oven proof cling film or parchment paper to prevent it drying out.

This is John Campbell's recipe from the Saturday Kitchen. I made this with fillet and the results were amazing. It would be interesting to see how a piece of topside would fare if treated the same way.

r0nanf

Buy a slow cooker, got one in January sales in Arnotts for €30. You can cook oxtail, shin beef etc for 12 hours at low temperatures allowing the connective tissue to break down, leaving you with the most flavoursome meat around. I cooked a whole pork shoulder and leg (bone in) for 16 hours to make pulled pork sandwiches on a saturday for a whole mess of people.

copacetic

brianthebard wrote: »

afaik fillet, sirloin and striploin are all subdivisions of a t-bone, so it shouldn't be surprising that a sirloin was tender. (and even if the first part isn't true, as pointed out above sirloin is a good cut so why wouldn't it be tender?)
Make sure you are buying your meat from a good butchers and that its been hung for 20 or so days. You could always tenderise your meat with a mallet if you wanted. Why are you soaking the chicken fillets in water though? It sounds so odd....chicken is hardly a tough meat I don't really understand the issue there?

not quite, fillet/tenderloin is a seperate part from the sirloin which surrounds the fillet, t-bone is a part of the sirloin. In the UK though the 'sirloin' cut, includes the fillet.

As you say though, sirloin is a lovely cut of beef and makes for a really tender steak, as does ribeye at the other end. Both preferable to fillet imo.

OP it must the quality of the meat you are buying. Get aged ones with a darker look to them and a bit of marbling. M&S and Superquinn do 21 day aged that are a good start until you get a decent butcher.

Wikipedia actually has a good guide to the cuts of beef and the differences between what the US and UK call them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef

whitneysegura

I add lemon juice to just about everything I cook, it seems to help alot!

The Hill Billy

wilson10 wrote: »

For stews if you boil it long enough, even the toughest meat will melt in your mouth

This may be down to semantics, but if you boil meat for a long time it will be as tough as a boot.
However, if you gently simmer a stew for a couple of hours the meat should end up very tender.

BroomBurner

Hill Billy wrote: »

This may be down to semantics, but if you boil meat for a long time it will be as tough as a boot.
However, if you gently simmer a stew for a couple of hours the meat should end up very tender.

That depends on how much fat there is in the meat. If there is plenty of fat, then you can cook the piece for longer and it will become softer. That's why fillet steak would never normally be used in stews or curries that require lengthy cooking.

For really tender steak, Dunnes used to do an aged steak in a black pack. Not sure what it was called, but it was very tender, much better than their usual rubbish.

Try buying steak that has been aged/hung for a good while. The longer it's been hung, the more tender it will be.