Fajita Disaster!
I recently went through my freezer and took out some items that I knew needed to be cooked. I found what appeared to be flank steak in a Ziploc bag. I marinated it all day today in my yummy, tasty concoction. After grilling it, though, I sliced it and served it to the hubby because he had to hurry off to work. The poor guy could hardly chew it! I sliced it against the grain just like you're supposed to. After observing him trying in vain to bite into/chew that meat, a horrible thought came to me-
not flank steak...brisket!
Is there some very obvious difference between the two cuts that I could have looked for? Besides the fact that I should have labeled the bag when I froze the meat, how would I have known?
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3 Comments:
The flank steaks I have purchased are usually fairly thin. Not really muche thicker than 1". Hope that helps.
DELICIOUS at 11:24AM on 08/01/09
A flank steak has long, striated muscle fibers that run along its entire length, and, as DELICIOUS said, it's thin. The grain in a brisket is cut crosswise, and it more resembles a big sirloin steak.
For both cuts, I use a Jaccard meat tenderizer tool, which helps the marinade penatrate the meat by punching a million tiny holes in it.
http://www.jaccard.com/
salpico at 12:44PM on 08/01/09
It's really hard to tell the difference between two cuts of meat when you're looking at them frozen in a bag. I've put things away thinking I didn't need to label them and two weeks later had no idea what was in there. They just all start to look alike. It's best just to chalk this up to experience and always label.
tapioca at 4:18PM on 08/01/09