Chuck. Blade. Paleron. Flatiron steak. Chicken steak...so many names for this piece of beef.
Staring happily at the chicken steak in the display case at Dickson's Farmstand at the Chelsea Market, I asked the girl serving me where on the beast it belongs, as I have no idea how to tell butchers in parts foreign what a chicken steak is. Ain't none of them heard of its French name, paleron.
I have only ever seen it at Los Paisanos on Smith Street in Brooklyn, and I always use it for boeuf bourgignon, at least, ever since I ate it at Les Halles, for Anthony Bourdain's 50th birthday party.
In case you're wondering, it was not a very exclusive affair. The place was jammed solid with upright people, cradling bowls of the boeuf, which was served en masse with impeccable frites. I had his then-editor, Mr Gianopoulous to thank for the invitation (thanks again, Mr G). Surprisingly, it was the best boeuf bourgignon (hereafter bb) I had ever eaten, and as soon as the Les Halles Cookbook was in my grasping little paws, and I had read the recipe, that boeuf was my boeuf (except I still use bacon, which he does not - recipe here) and a lot more red wine. And chicken steak was specified.
So...when I told the friendly Dickson's girl that it's what I use for bb, she said, very brightly, Oh no, that's a waste of chicken steak, you should use chuck!
Grrrrr. This was confusing. I thought it WAS a type of chuck!
And I have never made bb with 'chuck': I have eaten that same recipe made with chuck, cooked by the same Mr G's then-girlfriend, when we were still on speaking terms. Though tenderish, it still had that essentially stringy, chucky feel.
Chicken steak, on the other hand, with its distinctive central seam of fat around a tender cartilage, dissolves in your mouth.
"A waste of chicken steak?" I don't think so. That boeuf is divine.
The problem for Web surfers and cooks is that the definition of chuck is very broad. There is chuck and there is chuck. There could be good chuck and bad chuck. But chicken steak IS chuck. All from the shoulder of the beef. It it doesn't have that seam dividing the steak down the middle, it ain't chicken steak.
So I left with my sausages and little string-wrapped lamb belly, feeling confused and self righteous and thwarted, somehow. All I had wanted was a lesson in anatomy, not a molesting of the sacred boeuf recipe.
So. Anyone else have another name for this piece of meat? [See comments.]
5 comments:
This steak is also known as top blade steak. The tender, juicy top blade steak comes from the shoulder clod and resembles a flank steak. Top blade steak can be grilled, skillet cooked, or stir-fried, and it is one of the most tender, richly flavored steaks. I think it's a great cut to use for "BB"
In NZ we knew it as blade.Top blade for the better piece. My mother always asked (or sent me to ask) for it as such, rather than "stewing steak" or "gravy beef" for which the butcher tended to give one shin!
But in those days, the meat was all grass-fed and often farm-killed.
What the heck you get now I don't know.
Chicken steak is new to me!
Thank you, Anonymous - top blade it is!
Dinahmow - another vote for blade. Judging by the amount of marbling in this meat (not much) this beef probably is grass fed...I should have asked. They say they source everything locally.
Another thought, Marie...in what season is the beast killed? It can make a difference, especially in drought-prone areas.
Oh, look! WV is cowaw
WV creeps me out, sometimes, like the ads google pops up after one has written an email about bunnies, and suddenly there's an ad for bunny slippers. Big bunny is watching us...
Drought, hm, might apply more to you. Most grainfed stock in the US are sent to feedlots to be fattened up for several months before slaughter, so their diet is pretty detached from weather.
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