This month, STEVE BAIN shares his secret to delivering the perfect steak sandwich — one you won’t end up wearing.
Way back when I was at university, its cafeteria staff could make a ‘works’ burger that either stayed together or fell apart (think beetroot and tomato either in your lap, or down the front of your shirt).
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The ‘secret’ was in two parts. Firstly, the slippery components in the salad were placed between lettuce leaves so that the staining slices would slip out when you bit into the steak. Secondly, if the steak was more gristle than meat, your teeth would be unable to bite clean through it. Thus you could end up with a piece of steak hanging down over your chin and a red-stained pair of strides.
The ‘secret’, if it is a secret, is to trim your steak. Here’s how.
Step 1: Here we have an eye fillet (the small piece), two porterhouses in the middle and a bone-in rib-eye on the end.
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Step 2: Note that each of the steaks has a small amount of white sinew and/or fat. The knife points to the chewy bit that ends up as gristle when you sear the steak in a frying pan.
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Step 3: To remove the hard to chew (from a steak sandwich perspective) pieces, simply cut them out with a sharp knife. The example here has the ends and outsides trimmed away from the porterhouses. Note that I’ve included the bun in the photo to show that the shape of the bun may influence the choice of meat cut (and vice versa) and/or the way that you trim it.
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Step 4: Take the offcuts and toss them into the frying pan over a high heat. This makes the dripping that greases the pan. You can omit this step if you wish to use an alternative non-stick option.
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Step 5: When the pan is really hot, throw the two trimmed steaks into the pan and sear them.
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Step 6: Start flipping the steaks when the first side is fully seared (your nose will tell you).
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Step 7: After both sides are done, remove the steaks from the searing pan and let them rest. The two steaks are shown here beside two uncooked same-size porterhouses and one of the seared offcuts. You can see in the photo that the steaks shrink a little when cooking — keep this in mind when sizing up your bread roll options.
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Step 8: The two seared porterhouse steaks (called ‘strips’ in some countries) fit perfectly on a long bun (you can tell he’s done this before — Ed).
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Step 9: Now we look at the trimming of a bone-in rib eye.
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Step 10: Cut the meat from the bone and trim away the sinew from the edge. Note that all of the offcuts and cut-aways can go into a winter casserole.
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Step 11: This bigger single piece is ideal for a round burger bun.
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Step 12: For completeness, this time we cut the middle out of a scotch fillet.
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Step 13: The white bits in the middle are likely to be tougher to bite through and could result in a messy outcome, just like the ones the cafeteria staff could get a giggle out of at the expense of a difficult customer.
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Step 14: A close-up of the cutaway.
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Step 15: Note the end has been folded back in for an intact presentation. Again, all of the trimmings are great ingredients for inclusion in a slow-cooked casserole.
