In hindsight, I should have cleaned up the cutting board, and decluttered the background of onion peels and meat wrappings…but my brother and I were talking about cooking steak and I couldn’t help snap a photo. So here it is, our kitchen, a quick dinner of Dakin’s Cheesy Pasta with some steak garnish on top! Yum.
In our kitchen, we often eat based on what we have the most in the freezer, or what has been relegated to the “house” freezer. Not surprisingly, this makes great fodder for brainstorming around the dinner table on how to get folks interested in what’s for dinner (aka what we have lots of in the freezer).
There are some beef cuts that speak for themselves, most folks have heard of a ribeye steak, or beef tenderloin (filet mignon) and so those cuts speak for themselves. Who has ever gotten to know the wallflower in the corner like a shoulder tender, or a chuck steak? Today I want to introduce you to a genre of steak that we eat often in our house: I’m going to call them Shy Steaks. They are excellent, unique and cheaper than their more famous comrades.
I’ll take the next few weeks to introduce you to these hidden gems and today I’ll start with the steak on our cutting board: the shoulder tender. This cut has one of the widest ranging list of names, including teres major, bistro filet, shoulder petite tender. As this last name would suggest, this is a cut revered for its tenderness. It is a small muscle tucked in the shoulder or the “chuck” of the beef. My favorite way to cook this steak (and many others like it) is as follows:
Shoulder Tender Steak Recipe:
– Pat the steak dry with a towel, this helps the steak sear when it hits the hot pan.
– Heat a skillet to medium high heat, so that when you add a dollop of oil/butter/lard to the pan it melts quickly and smokes lightly. This steak is lean and so needs a touch of oil in the pan to keep from sticking, and it is especially important not to over cook since lean cuts will dry out when over cooked!
– Sprinkle some coarse salt in the pan then lay the steak in the pan. The salt helps flavor the steak and keep it from sticking to the skillet.
– Cook to about 125-130 degrees for a good rare center, about 3-5 minutes per side depending on pan heat. Then let the steak rest for 5 minutes while you finish the rest of the meal.
– Slice into thin pieces, cutting “across the grain” to ensure a tender mouth feel.
Featherbed Lane Farm Delivery – Is happening at the end of the month! Place your orders before Wednesday 1/27 at midnight to get your order at pickup on Saturday 1/30. Just select Featherbed Lane for your pickup location.
Tangleroot Farm CSA Members! – Did you know you can still get meat from us? I miss their vegetables as much as you do, believe me, and we can’t wait for the CSA to start up again…if you haven’t signed up for next year do it right now here! And tell your friends all about how you get your fresh weekly vegetables delivered right to your door, hint hint, nudge nudge. I digress. For those of you who were getting delivery with your CSA we also offer order pickup at the farm and home delivery for those in the Saratoga Area. You’ll need to switch your pickup location, just click on the “change” button under the main menu (Shop Now, Pickup Locations, etc…) Select “home delivery” or Reber Rock Farm and you can start ordering!
We had a good snow this morning, and with temperatures hovering at the freezing mark it made for good building snow. We made an enormous snow ball, then decided it should be a climbing structure, soon to be mini snow ramp/sled jump.
Reber Rock Farm Blog 