Innovation in technique creates new cut of steak

There's a new steak in town.

Well, it's not really new. It's been around for about 10 years. Restaurants and chefs have been hailing the flat-iron steak for a while. It's tender, tastes great and is affordable.

But this cut of beef has not been widely available. I noticed it last week at Harris Teeter for the first time. Since then, I found out that Lowes Foods and Food Lion also carry it.

The flat-iron steak comes from the chuck, or top of the shoulder of the steer. This particular cut had been ignored because of a big piece of tough, connective tissue. Butchers cut top blade steaks from the chuck, but their traditional crosswise cuts produced steaks that had connective tissue all over the place.

Direction counts

Eating a steak like that is a big turnoff -- and a big-time workout for jaw muscles. But then a funny thing happened when researchers at the University of Nebraska and University of Florida did a comprehensive study of all the muscles -- more than 5,500 of them -- in a steer.

These researchers were funded by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, which wanted to know if any cuts of meat were being overlooked.

Of those thousands of muscles, it's this top part of the chuck that made the study worthwhile.

It turns out that this meat is tender, but no one really knew or cared because of the nasty connective tissue.

The big discovery from the study is that if butchers cut the meat lengthwise instead of crosswise, they can isolate the connective tissue. Then it can be easily removed. Researchers likened this method to filleting a fish.

Catching on

The flat-iron steak has a triangular shape. The story goes that its name came about because it resembles the shape of a flat iron.

Sales of flat-iron steaks have been increasing rapidly since the discovery of the cutting-technique. Sales almost doubled, from 47 million to 92 million pounds between 2005 and 2006, according to the beef association.

This steak can be grilled, sauteed or pan-broiled. (This latter method's name is misleading; it simply is quickly frying over high heat, usually in a cast-iron pan, without any added oil; the oven broiler is not used.)

Flat-iron steak can also be braised, as for pot roast, but that doesn't seem practical, as cheaper cuts of chuck work just as well in braised dishes.

Flat-iron steak is also good for stir-fries, kabobs and fajitas. It seems to do best with quick cooking over medium-high to high heat. And it is at its most tender when cooked medium-rare or medium.

When grilling, sautéing or pan-broiling, most recipes call for marinating first. Bruce Aidells and Denis Kelly recommend marinating in The Complete Meat Cookbook, saying that the tenderness of top blade steak can vary considerably when cooked plain. The marinade serves as a hedge to make sure the steak comes out tender.

I wanted to see how much a marinade would help. So I marinated one steak in soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, red-wine vinegar and olive oil. A second steak got only a sprinkling of salt.

I cooked these in a cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat. I took them off after 2 minutes on each side, for medium-rare doneness.

The marinated steak was extremely tender, but it wasn't that different from the plain one, which was still plenty tender. Both steaks were succulent and had a great beefy flavor -- just what I expect from more expensive cuts.

When cutting into the steak, I did encounter some connective tissue running horizontally across the middle through part of the steak. To find out why, I called Lobel's, a reputable butcher in New York. I was told that some butchers don't always get out all of the tissue.

The good news is that when I cut the steak into thin slices, the parts with bits of remaining tissue were only slightly chewy and barely noticeable. It's also easy to cut out these bits after cooking -- or before cooking if the meat is being cut for stir-fry or fajitas.

About the only problem with flat-iron steak is its growing popularity, which is driving up the price. I paid $6.99 a pound -- less than the $10 and up for strip and rib-eye, but not exactly cheap.

And I fear that flat-irons will soon go the way of flank steak, a once cheap cut that now goes for $8 or $9 a pound.

■ Michael Hastings, the Journal's Food editor, can be contacted by phone at 727-7394, e-mail at mhastings@wsjournal.com, or mail at c/o Winston-Salem Journal, P.O. 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27102. His most recent columns can be read on our Web site at www.journalnow.com.