[Sca-cooks] Beef Bafflement article

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Apr 15, 2006, at 12:39 PM, marilyn traber 011221 wrote:

> This was a thick cut that would lap over all sides of a big serving
> platter, all boneless, well-marbled, and tender. Haven't seen cuts  
> like it
> recently, but it was boneless, and huge, well marbled, and absolutely
> delectible. Was, however, somewhat divided into sections, going  
> from one
> muscle group to another. At the time, I knew very little about meat  
> cutting,
> so all I knew was that if I ordered that from the butcher, I got  
> what I
> wanted, and I could divide it myself into single meal sized servings.

That sounds like actual sirloin. It has a sort of arc shape, but the  
pelvic bone structure has been removed from the middle of it, so it  
ends up looking like several different muscles inside a thin  
semicircle of fat (unless, of course, you trim it all off). I find  
that unless it's really prime, it can be unpleasantly dry, even when  
medium rare. I think the muscles have an unusually fine texture that  
can translate in the mouth into a sort of sawdust texture. This is  
less of an issue if it's nice and thick, but occasionally you run  
across a sirloin steak in a restaurant that's about half an inch  
thick and quickly overcooked.

There's a fairly modestly-priced (for what you get) restaurant in my  
neighborhood that mostly sells highly-seasoned rotisserie chicken,  
chicharrones, rice and beans, salads, and a general mix of Colombian  
and Dominican foods (not unlike "we have both kinds of music, country  
_and_ western"). One of their less inspired menu offerings is a  
rather thin sirloin (cut from the sirloin) steak, grilled and topped  
with a pinkish, chowdery seafood stew (which, if you could get it in  
a bowl, would be fine stuff). My son, of course, having inherited the  
magical ability to find the most bogus item on a restaurant menu and  
immediately order it because it sounds great, always seems to find a  
way to order this item, having forgotten since the last time that he  
always seems to manage to be full once he has eaten the mixed seafood  
from the top of the steak.

> The strip steak thing seems to me to be a relatively recent cut,  
> along with
> the sirloin tips- never saw them when I was first out on my own buying
> groceries in the early 70s.

Maybe it's a regional thing, but it's a close relative of the shell  
steak (it's a strip steak when boneless, a shell when bone-in) which  
is fairly well-established across most of the U.S., anyway, AFAIK.  
It's not on a par with silly things like tri-tips or hanger steaks --  
trendy but basically pointless except as a way to charge more money,  
given that these aren't new and previously unexploited parts of the  
steer...

Adamantius




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04