Many of the beef recipes I get from America’s Test Kitchen call for “Steak Tips” or “Sirloin Steak Tips”. They seem to use these terms interchangeably. Since they use the plural “Tips” (as opposed to “Tip”) it makes me think I should be looking for something already cut into pieces such as one finds labeled “Stew Meat”. But that is not the case.
The only reference I could find in ATK was that outside of Boston it may be labeled as flap meat, sirloin steak tips, tip steak, or bavette steak.
On the ATK website they say that “Until the 1980s, butchers looked at flap meat as a sort of throwaway cut that could be turned into stew meat or ground beef but not much else.” So maybe it IS stew meat?
In answer to the question “WHAT ARE STEAK TIPS”, ATK says “Steak tips—a cut with deep beefy flavor and a distinctive loose longitudinal grain—can be packaged as whole steaks, cubes, or strips. Steak tips are cut from sirloin flap meat, the area on the bottom sirloin of the cow near the flank. A whole piece of flap meat weighs about 2½ pounds, ranges in thickness from ½ inch to 1½ inches, and is less expensive than top-tier steaks such as strip or rib-eye”.
They show a picture of what a whole Flap Steak looks like, and the only thing I have seen in grocery stores in the Midwest (Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan) that looks anything like it is Skirt Steak. However, ATK says it is not Skirt Steak. On another website it said that it is called “Tri-Tip” in California which they describe as “a triangular cut of beef that comes from the bottom sirloin of the hindquarter. It is one of two muscles in the bottom sirloin; the other is the bavette steak.” So it is close, but it is not it. And the ATK picture is definitely not that of a Tri-Tip.
I have never found anything that exactly matches the ATK description of Steak Tips. What I DID find was labeled as “Beef Round Sirloin Tip Charbroil Steak”. I bought it and tried it with one of the ATK grilling recipes. It was OK. It was beefy. It was kind of tough and would not be mistaken for Tri-Tip, ribeye or strip steak. But it really didn’t look anything like the picture on the ATK website. And it certainly was not worth raving about the way they do at ATK as their Go-To piece of beef (and it IS in a lot of their recipes).
Does anyone know what I should be looking for? Or is it possible that the rest of the country still considers it a “throwaway cut” and I’m not going to find it anywhere outside of New England?
The only reference I could find in ATK was that outside of Boston it may be labeled as flap meat, sirloin steak tips, tip steak, or bavette steak.
On the ATK website they say that “Until the 1980s, butchers looked at flap meat as a sort of throwaway cut that could be turned into stew meat or ground beef but not much else.” So maybe it IS stew meat?
In answer to the question “WHAT ARE STEAK TIPS”, ATK says “Steak tips—a cut with deep beefy flavor and a distinctive loose longitudinal grain—can be packaged as whole steaks, cubes, or strips. Steak tips are cut from sirloin flap meat, the area on the bottom sirloin of the cow near the flank. A whole piece of flap meat weighs about 2½ pounds, ranges in thickness from ½ inch to 1½ inches, and is less expensive than top-tier steaks such as strip or rib-eye”.
They show a picture of what a whole Flap Steak looks like, and the only thing I have seen in grocery stores in the Midwest (Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan) that looks anything like it is Skirt Steak. However, ATK says it is not Skirt Steak. On another website it said that it is called “Tri-Tip” in California which they describe as “a triangular cut of beef that comes from the bottom sirloin of the hindquarter. It is one of two muscles in the bottom sirloin; the other is the bavette steak.” So it is close, but it is not it. And the ATK picture is definitely not that of a Tri-Tip.
I have never found anything that exactly matches the ATK description of Steak Tips. What I DID find was labeled as “Beef Round Sirloin Tip Charbroil Steak”. I bought it and tried it with one of the ATK grilling recipes. It was OK. It was beefy. It was kind of tough and would not be mistaken for Tri-Tip, ribeye or strip steak. But it really didn’t look anything like the picture on the ATK website. And it certainly was not worth raving about the way they do at ATK as their Go-To piece of beef (and it IS in a lot of their recipes).
Does anyone know what I should be looking for? Or is it possible that the rest of the country still considers it a “throwaway cut” and I’m not going to find it anywhere outside of New England?
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