Rubbish sirloin from Tesco

bundly

Cooking help needed!

In one of my rare food-frugal moments instead of buying sirloin steak from my butcher I grabbed a couple of plastic boxes in Tesco as their sirloin was on special offer.

I cooked the contents of the first box in my usual way and the steak was tough and flavourless. Most got thrown away (some "bargain", huh!) I shoved the other box in the freezer and it's been there ever since.

Now three months are almost up and I need to use it. Is there any way I can cook it to make it tasty, tender and edible? Or shall I just give it to the cat -- if he'll eat it!

ckerrd

How do you normally cook it?

Sirloin steak I would do on a gridle or bbq for about 3 minutes each side, but it depends on the way you like it.

Plushchris

Use it in a stew or something that cooks it for a while.

And consider it a lesson learnt and not buy nasty supermarket meat again! lol

Clowance

it in a frying pan in red wine (not too fast). When the steak is cooked remove it and "reduce" the wine and use as sauce. In case you don't know reduce is boil it down until enough water evaporates to make a slightly thicker liquid.

Bronnie

bundly wrote: »

Cooking help needed!

In one of my rare food-frugal moments instead of buying sirloin steak from my butcher I grabbed a couple of plastic boxes in Tesco as their sirloin was on special offer.

I cooked the contents of the first box in my usual way and the steak was tough and flavourless. Most got thrown away (some "bargain", huh!) I shoved the other box in the freezer and it's been there ever since.

Now three months are almost up and I need to use it. Is there any way I can cook it to make it tasty, tender and edible? Or shall I just give it to the cat -- if he'll eat it!

I had some a while back, it was Irish sirloin I think (not to say there's normally anything wrong with that, just that this particular batch was truly dreadful). I was so incensed at his toughness and inediblity (?), that I actually scraped it off the plates and took it back! Nobody is really bothered there but I did get my money back.

If it's anything like that meat, I'd forget trying to grill or panfry it. I'd cube it, brown it and cook it in a low oven for 3 hours with some onion and carrots and stock/gravy. Then if it's still no good, eat the veg and gravy and give the meat to the cat

Another option is to tenderise the beef in the same way Chinese takeaways do. There are different methods involving variously bicarb soda/cornflour/egg white/vinegar. This results in a soft, tender,slippery-textured beef. The meat is rendered tasteless, you add back in the flavour when you cook it, although this messing round with meat is why I never eat beef in Chinese takeaways! Maybe experiment with half of it, if you can be bothered, if you google you'll find info, I can't seem to link direct to the page I found.

bundly

Fantastic answers thanks vv much everyone!

I am going to take Bronnie's suggestion.

cube it, brown it and cook it in a low oven for 3 hours with some onion and carrots and stock/gravy. Then if it's still no good, eat the veg and gravy and give the meat to the cat

MushyPeas

I had the same thing recently, I marinaded it in some red wine and then slow cooked - yum

alwaysonthego_2

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Ruby_Moon

It may have been frozen for 3 months but that doesn't mean you have to use it now. Freezing items for years doesn't do you any harm to eat them, it can reduce the quality of the item though.
If it wasn't that good in the first place then I wouldn't be in a rush to use it until the summer, then I would grind and make into some tasty burgers for the BBQ.

ben500

Supermarket beef is attrocious quality and calls for drastic cooking methods. Place it in a pan after seasoning it, cook with a lid on for twenty mins or so on very low heat, remove lid and fast fry for a few minutes, it will be extremely tender and a little more tasteful but to be honest I think you are expecting a little too much from a poor quality heavily contaminated product.

viktory

I agree with the suggestion of making it into a stew. I also find that if I buy cheap (er) silverside for a roast it is tough and tasteless simply roasted. Therefore, I pot roast - makes such an enormous difference to the tenderness and flavour.