Skirt steak is for fajitas, right? That's the conventional logic for using one of the tougher cuts of beef you'll find at the store.
But as flank, flatiron and hanger steaks have become more widely available, we might call this entire category of meat Thin Cuts Of Beef That Take Well To Tenderizing.
Three of those (everything but the flatiron) come from the belly or lower half of the animal. Flatiron steaks come from the shoulder, but they cook like their flavorful cousins on the other side of the cow. So, how exactly do you cook those cuts of meat?
The short answer: Quickly, over high heat and after lots of time in a marinade.
For a longer answer, we have to first understand why these cuts can be tough in the first place. They come from hard-working muscles that have lots of fibrous tissue and not a lot of fat. With other potentially tough cuts of meat, the conventional logic is to cook them low and slow, as in beef stew or a pot roast.
But these cuts are thin by nature, which means you can pound them with a mallet to tenderize them in a way that you couldn't with a shoulder roast. You also could use a store-bought meat tenderizer powder that breaks down the collagen and will result in tender meat without the elbow grease.
Even if you don't tenderize these cuts, you can work around their toughness by taking a clue from fajitas, which are always served in thin strips. (The word "fajita" is a diminutive of "faja," which means girdle or wide belt.)
By cutting the meat across the grain in thin slices, the long chewy fibers in the meat are cut into slivers, saving your jaws a lot of work. You can identify the grain of the meat by looking at it like you would a cutting board.
Look for the long parallel lines or striations of the muscle fibers and then cut perpendicular to them. In flank steak, long grains usually run lengthwise and are easy to spot. Flatiron steak is more marbled, but the grains generally run lengthwise, too.
In skirt steak, however, the fibers in the grain are shorter and run across the width cut, like books on a shelf. You'll need to cut the long piece of meat into small segments and rotate those sections 90 degrees to slice across the grain. Skirt steaks are usually sold with a thick layer of fat that you should trim off before cooking.
For the best texture, cook these cuts only to rare or medium-rare. The longer they cook, the tougher they'll get.
For stir-fries or skewers, you can cut the meat into thin slices before cooking, and that's an easy task if you place the meat in the freezer for 15 to 20 minutes before slicing.
Food on 11/30/2016