7 Ways to Make Cheap Beef Tender & Flavorful

[Peter the eater]

Just grind it after blanching the outside surface to kill bacteria. Forget the stupid jaccarding. Do you have a grinder or processor? Do you have a pot big enough to boil some water? Yes? Then you have enough to blanch, grind your own, and be safe from bacteria. Take the opportunity to add some flavorings (spices, fats) and enjoy.

Ray

Why is jaccarding stupid?

[IndyRob]

I wonder about ways to improve marbling. Maybe there's a jaccard-like machine where each blade is a syringe that injects "liquid lardons" into the meat?

I like that idea. But it almost requires frozen fat that could be pushed out a small tube. Whereas a sort of fine julienne of meat and fat could be bundled up and compressed.

[David A. Goldfarb]

What about traditional larding? I don't know that I've ever seen a larding needle up close, but it's a standard technique in the old books, and I was able to turn up new larding needles on Google made by Matfer and F. Dick for $5-10, so someone must be using them. I think I'll get one.

[ray goud]

Peter, you already answered your question, by saying that the piercing drives the bacteria in, releases juices, and requires you to buy something new, for one purpose.

Ray

Edited May 31, 2010 by ray goud (log)

[judiu]

Chuck eye steaks are good, but chuck 'mock tenders' are better! Give them the thumb test before you buy 'em, though. Slight thumb pressure can diagnose a tough steak easily!

What on earth is a chuck mock tender?

Sorry, Peter! I have to presume that it's an American cut, since you are not familiar with it. It's a cut from the chuck (obviously) that is about the size and shape of a nice fillet steak, but more marbled and with more flavor.Other than that I have no clue, but they're good!

[nickrey]

... my first attempt would use mechanical action to tenderize the steak and then I'd cook it as per the best filet. Right, chop up the chuckeye and put it into a food processor to break down the fibers and distribute the fat. Now, pack the meat paste into a ring and chill. Then season and treat as I would my filets - season and then BIG sear then finish in the oven.

Later I tried the same basic approach but changed the heat - going to sous vide. A much better result, but far too burger-y.

If you can sous vide, leave it as a whole piece of steak and cook it low and slow. No need to play with it to get the tender result you want.

[jsmeeker]

smoke it. (the right cut. Like a brisket)

[JAZ]

Just grind it after blanching the outside surface to kill bacteria. Forget the stupid jaccarding. Do you have a grinder or processor? Do you have a pot big enough to boil some water? Yes? Then you have enough to blanch, grind your own, and be safe from bacteria. Take the opportunity to add some flavorings (spices, fats) and enjoy.

Ray

But grinding meat and using a Jaccard don't yield similar results at all. Grinding or chopping gives you a lot of small, separate pieces of meat. Jaccarding gives you a single piece of meat with the fibers cut by the blades. From the initial post, I assumed Peter was talking about techniques that kept the piece of meat whole.

[HowardLi]

Your methods 2 and 3 are basically the same.

[nickrey]

Your methods 2 and 3 are basically the same.

Only if you consider that a fine razor cut is physically the same as a hack with a blunt knife.

[Peter the eater]

Your methods 2 and 3 are basically the same.

Only if you consider that a fine razor cut is physically the same as a hack with a blunt knife.

"2. Stab it repeatedly with a fork" and "3. Pass it through a jaccard" are the similar in concept but the results are quite different, in my experience.

[Peter the eater]

I've found another way NOT to tenderize an inexpensive steak -- put it through a pasta roller. What a mess! The rollers are too smooth to get a good grip on the meat, but once it grabs, the innards fill up with meat juices and you need to disassemble the machine to get the steak out.

[austinlinecook]

Most of us "sous viders" sear the meat afterwards using very high heat to give a Maillard reaction. This is often aided by salting or by a glucose wash (credit to Douglas Baldwin for the latter).

What's a "glucose wash"? Are you trying to make a joke or something?

[nickrey]

Most of us "sous viders" sear the meat afterwards using very high heat to give a Maillard reaction. This is often aided by salting or by a glucose wash (credit to Douglas Baldwin for the latter).

What's a "glucose wash"? Are you trying to make a joke or something?

The Maillard reaction involves a reducing sugar and an amino acid. The caramelization reaction involving sugar is somewhat different and typically happens at a higher heat but it can enhance the effect. Douglas Baldwin suggested a wash of glucose syrup prior to searing to enhance the flavour achieved during searing.

See what happens when you let scientists loose in the kitchen.

[Peter the eater]

I've got a small acrylic container for marinating with a special feature: once the meat and marinade is sealed in the clear rigid container, you pull up a plunger and lock it in place with a twist. The idea is to increase the volume of the container thereby lowering the air pressure inside. You can see the meat expand a bit which allows the marinade to penetrate better, or so the instructions say. I haven't used it enough to know if it really works.

It looks like this:

[jrshaul]

Chuck eye steaks are good, but chuck 'mock tenders' are better! Give them the thumb test before you buy 'em, though. Slight thumb pressure can diagnose a tough steak easily!

What on earth is a chuck mock tender?

Sorry, Peter! I have to presume that it's an American cut, since you are not familiar with it. It's a cut from the chuck (obviously) that is about the size and shape of a nice fillet steak, but more marbled and with more flavor.Other than that I have no clue, but they're good!

What's the thumb test?

[andrewk512]

If you don't have sous vide: http://www.americastestkitchen.com/recipes/detail.php?docid=11797 (Low and slow roast, great for larger cuts, works somewhat well on smaller cuts)

Otherwise, just sous vide.

That pasta machine experiment was rather... creative.

A cow is a whole animal, there are no "cheap cuts".....

I'd argue that something like the round (lean and tough) is considerably less valuable than something that will braise nicely, like a shank, or something that is already tender, like a rib eye.

[jrshaul]

I've found a place near my house that has very good prices on hanger steaks. They're half the price of a strip steak (and compared to the porterhouse, even less!), but just as good and seem to do quite well on the grill.

Edited July 5, 2011 by jrshaul (log)

[judiu]

Chuck eye steaks are good, but chuck 'mock tenders' are better! Give them the thumb test before you buy 'em, though. Slight thumb pressure can diagnose a tough steak easily!

What on earth is a chuck mock tender?

Sorry, Peter! I have to presume that it's an American cut, since you are not familiar with it. It's a cut from the chuck (obviously) that is about the size and shape of a nice fillet steak, but more marbled and with more flavor.Other than that I have no clue, but they're good!

What's the thumb test?

A quick prod with the ball of the thumb into the meat. If meat is tender, the impression will remain.

[jrshaul]

While my grandmother generally is not much of a cook, she does seem to do well by some fairly inexpensive cuts of beef. Papain meat tenderizer may be unsuitable for most cuts of meat, but for particularly tough cuts such as chuck steaks, it makes a significant improvement.

[OliverB]

low and slow in my Big Green Egg works great, you can do the same in any grill, just takes more watching of temperatures. I try to keep it below 300 F.

I also use a jaccarder or how that thing maybe called, works wonders on tough cuts. I'm not concerned with the 'pushing bacteria in' at all and there is no loss of juices either, meat comes out juicy and tender :-)

[DrewUK]

I buy in bulk vacuum packed bags from Costco. Some I cut into roasts and wrap the fat around the outside and tie with butcher string. Some gets cut into large roasts for the pressure cooker, nothing like a pot roast in the pressure cooker. The rest I trim out the fat and other bits and then grind for very lean ground beef. Very economical especially if you wait to buy your meat when there is a sale, then be sure to buy the smallest you can find because it is usually a flat reduction not a percentage.