Fry it, grill it, barbecue it…however you cook it there’s nothing better than a nice juicy steak. I usually just pop it into the frying pan, it’s not there for too long, it’s already dead and doesn’t need to be killed again. Lots of people swear by the George Foreman style electric grills .
Any steak cooked over hot coals, be it a barbecue or a wood burner in your favourite restaurant always has that extra special smokey flavour.
If we start at the very top (actually much higher than that), we’ll find Kobe Beef. It’s from Japan and very little of it is ever exported. It is famous for the marbling of fat within the meat and prices are astronomical. The London restaurant Sushisamba offers a 1kg piece of Kobe beef to be cut very thinly and cooked on a hot stone for a cool £1,000 to be shared between 4 or 5 diners. A good few years back I was visiting Japan, looking at the glorious Koi Carp that are bred there. We were taken to dinner by one of the fish breeders and had exactly that dish. I’m sure that hardly anybody in the group appreciated the cost of Kobe Beef, it was delicious and we had a second helping!. Anyhow, let’s now look at the various steaks that are available to mere mortals here in the UK.
The tenderest, leanest cut of steak. They are low in fat but delicious. Don’t overcook them, that’s cruelty to a wonderful piece of meat. A 6oz steak costs around £7.50
Worth mentioning are fillet tails, They are the thin end of a beef fillet. They have the same properties, are equally delicious but cost around 65% of the full fillet steak price i.e. around £5.
A Great British Favourite, this steak is juicy and flavoursome but still wonderfully tender. In the United States it is called a strip steak or a New York Strip. A 6oz steak costs around £4.50.
This 16oz steak is built for the serious steak lover with a healthy appetite. With the fillet on one side of the bone and the sirloin on the other, this is a combination of two wonderful steaks. You’ll need a big plate to do it justice. Typical cost is around £11 for a 16oz steak.
Ribeye is one of the most popular steaks in the UK and for very good reason, it is delicious. This is the steak for the person who doesn’t like their meat bloody, that piece of fat in the middle of the steak will dissolve as the meat cooks, bringing oodles of flavour to a wonderfully tender steak. Typical cost is around £6 for an 8oz steak.
The most economical of the popular cuts of frying steak, rump steak always has a layer of fat on one side and can be fried or grilled to give a juicy steak at a reasonable price. Price for an 8oz steak is around £3.50. Incidentally, if you’re feeling just a tiny bit decadent, braised rump steak with onions, carrots and maybe a suet dumpling is to die for on a cold winters day.
Let me now introduce you to two steaks that are virtually never seen in this country, one is popular in France, the other in the United states. They are both delicious and very reasonably priced when compared to the more usual steaks mentioned above.
As you can see in the picture, the Bavette has much more fat marbled through it than the more normal steak cuts. It is very popular throughout France (and they know a thing or two about food), and is renowned for its wonderful flavour. 500 g costs around £4.50
And so we’ve reached our cheapest steak and our best kept secret. It’s little known in the UK although it is very popular in the United States. With a unique character and flavour it has a very short grain and marbling, and is best served medium rare to bring out the natural sweetness. Given the choice of Flatiron or Rump I’d choose the Flatiron every day of the week. An 8oz steak costs around £3, great value for a superb piece of meat.
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