What is Flat Iron Steak?
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A bovine iron steak is a steak taken from one of the muscles in the first cut of the beef muscle , specifically the upper blade (or infraspinatus) muscle, which is part of a muscle group called the screw shoulder .
See also: beef cuts diagram
If you know anything about beef, you know that it comes from one of the most heavily used parts of the cow and has a lot of hard connective tissue.
But the upper blade muscle is actually quite tender. The only problem is that it has a long rib that runs through it, which gets hard and grating when it’s cooked.
The solution is to cut the muscle longitudinally just above that rib, then twist it around and do the same to the other side. If you can imagine how you might fillet a fish, it’s a steel-iron steak with the top.
There’s a certain skill to this, mainly in the way of removing all the gristle without leaving too much meat. The remaining trimmings usually end up as ground beef .
See also: What is Delmonico Steak?
Splitting the meat from the top blade in this way yields two long, tender, flavorful and well-marbled cuts of beef that can be divided into individual steaks called flatbreads.
Unlike most steaks and roasts made from beef, flat-iron steaks are plenty for grilling on the barbecue and cheaper than ribeye or strip steaks .
Note that the tip of the blade meat also happens to be the same as what we make beef steaks from , the only difference is that it is sliced cross sectionally rather than lengthwise. So every blade steak has a piece of tough fat on it, which makes it more suitable for browning than grilling.
Another interesting fact about the flatiron steak is how its growing popularity has indirectly caused all sorts of other meat and rust to be present simply because once the top blade of muscle is removed, the butcher can’t make it into beef for traditional barbecuing anymore.
What’s left can go to the mill, but it’s not particularly profitable. What ends up happening is that all the beef starts to be pulled, muscle on muscle and sold as steaks and roasts of varying quality. If you’re interested, you can read much more about the beef plot in the primary section .
