Steaking New Territory
Alternative cuts offer more flavor on the grill

Everyone knows about grilling New York strip steaks and filet mignon. But restaurant chefs and savvy home cooks have gone beyond these ubiquitous and expensive cuts of beef to seek out less-pricey and very flavorful steaks such as the flatiron, hanger, skirt, tri-tip and hip. And, now that the word is out, these cuts are becoming easier to find.

“Beef prices are getting high, so from an economic standpoint these cuts make sense,” says E. Michael Reidt, chef of Sevilla restaurant in Santa Barbara, Calif.

But saving money doesn't necessarily mean sacrificing flavor—quite the opposite, actually. “The flatiron has a meatier taste than the rib eye or New York strip,” says Laurent Tourondel, chef of BLT Prime, a steak house in New York.

As much as I love a good grilled strip steak, I’d swap it for the gamy, earthy hanger steak in a minute. “Hanger steak and strip steak are so different, you can’t imagine they come from the same animal,” says George Faison, an owner of D’Artagnan, which supplies specialty meats to restaurants and consumers. Faison grew up in Texas eating skirt steak in fajitas. “I couldn't’t believe how good it was,” he says.

One caveat is that these alternative cuts are typically less tender than the more expensive ones. “All the studies show that consumers’ number one attribute for quality [steak] is tenderness,” says Rob Hurlbut, CEO of hormone-free meats purveyor Niman Ranch. “[However] once the consumer’s palate becomes more sophisticated, they see the [other] distinctions.”

The most important distinction is that cuts with the most muscle development have the most flavor. The trick is to find meat that delivers maximum flavor but that is still tender enough to be grilled.

You can mitigate chewiness by buying the meat from a quality purveyor, cooking it no further than medium-rare, letting it rest at least five minutes after cooking (loosely covered with foil) and cutting it thinly, against the grain. Here’s a closer look at five kinds of alternative cuts and how they should be enjoyed.

The flatiron, also known as the blade, takes its name from the shape of the meat, said to resemble an old-fashioned iron. It ranges from about 2 to 5 pounds and comes from chuck.

To enjoy flatiron steak, you have to deal with the line of gristle that runs through it. The easiest way is to buy meat with the gristle already removed, which is how Niman Ranch sells its superb “grill-ready” flatiron. You can also cut away the gristle yourself with the tip of a sharp paring knife before cooking. Or you can cut around the gristle when slicing the cooked meat.

I’ve successfully cooked flatiron steaks that were one-half to 2 inches thick. But Faison strongly recommends a thickness of no more than half an inch for a flatiron or any other steak from the Texas-bred Wagyu beef he sells. This Japanese breed, famously known for Kobe beef, has much more marbling than prime beef. Because of Wagyu’s high fat content, Faison treats it like foie gras, slicing it thinly and cooking it quickly over high heat.

High heat and quick cooking are generally recommended for all types of flatiron, hanger and skirt steak. A 1-pound flatiron steak about a half-inch thick will take four to six minutes to become medium-rare.

Hanger steak (onglet in French) is the quintessential cut for steak frites. There is only one hanger steak per animal, though removing the gristle separates the steak into two pieces. Accessing this cut can be difficult because of its location—in the diaphragm, hanging off the kidney, just below the tenderloin.

The gristle in hanger steak is normally removed by the butcher, though it was fairly easy for me to extract it from D’Artagnan’s untrimmed hanger (Faison hopes to have grill-ready cuts in the future). The steak I trimmed ended up being two pieces, one weighing 10 ounces, the other 15. They cooked to medium-rare in about eight and 10 minutes, respectively.

Located not far from the hanger steak, the skirt steak is the diaphragm of the steer, attached to the rib cage. This coarse cut looks like a long, wide belt (fajita in Spanish). The enormous popularity of the dish called fajitas has made the skirt steak somewhat scarce because supply can’t keep up with demand, though all the mail-order sources listed at the end of this story will have it available.

Because of the odd shape of the skirt, which can run 2 feet or longer, Jamie Purviance, author of Weber’s Real Grilling (Sunset) suggests cutting it into 8- to 10-inch pieces for even cooking. And since the meat is so thin, high heat is even more critical. “You want to get seared, caramelized flavors quickly,” Purviance says. “[It should be] off the grill in about five minutes.”

Flatiron, hanger and skirt steaks are not as physically attractive as more expensive cuts, so slice them in the kitchen before presenting them at the table. One of my favorite ways to serve them is in steak salads with hearty greens like radicchio, watercress and arugula.

Moving on to larger cuts of steak, the tri-tip, also known as the culotte, is a triangular piece cut from the end of the bottom sirloin. Though not quite as intensely flavored as flatiron, hanger or skirt steaks, it is a wonderful, family-size steak. Long a favorite in California, the tri-tip inexplicably has yet to catch on in other places.

Because it can be up to 3 inches thick (and can weigh as much as 3 pounds), you can’t grill a tri-tip entirely over direct heat. Instead, give it a good sear over high heat for three to four minutes on each side. Then move it to a cooler area of the grill, cover and cook for about 15 minutes or until the internal temperature in the middle registers 125° F to 130° F for medium-rare. The thinner ends will be closer to medium.

For a more evenly cut piece of meat, the hip sirloin is a good way to go, although it is not so in fashion today and can be more difficult to find. “I used to love it as a kid and wanted to bring it back,” says Evan Lobel of Lobel’s of New York, one of the country’s premier meat purveyors. “It begins where the porterhouse ends.” Indeed, Lobel’s Wagyu looks and tastes a lot like a porterhouse.

Hip sirloin is good for even cooking. I cooked a one-and-a-half-inch thick 3-pounder entirely over direct heat, and it was medium-rare in 12 to 15 minutes. If it’s a larger steak, you’ll have to cook it more like a tri-tip.

When it comes to marinating alternative cuts, flatiron, hanger and skirt steaks can handle heavy-duty marinades because of their robust flavors. At Yi Cuisine in Los Angeles, chef Rodelio Aglibot marinates his flatiron in a mix of sesame seeds, ginger, garlic and chile peppers. You could also use fresh herbs like rosemary and thyme with garlic and olive oil. Then again, these meats have so much flavor on their own, why mask it?

All that robust flavor does, however, demand robust wines. With flatiron, hanger and skirt steaks, I prefer Rhône wines such as Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Australian Shiraz, Argentinean Malbec and California Zinfandel or Petite Sirah are also good. For the less-earthy tri-tip and hip sirloin, big reds such as California Cabernet are fine. I recommend Santa Barbara Pinot Noir to simulate a Santa Maria barbecue. Why should Californians have all the fun?

How to Get It