Swiss Steak, so-so results

Charleston Dave

Fidel and Gunnar applauded this Alton Brown recipe, so I thought I'd give it a try. I also wanted to try something using my new Guru to hold temperature (didn't use the food probe, just the pit probe clipped onto the BGE thermometer, top of dome).

Prepared in a Staub ceramic-coated cast iron Dutch oven, started rangetop for convenience with 2# bottom round, sliced with grain then seasoned, flour-dredged, jaccarded aggressively both sides, and re-dredged before searing in bacon grease:




Starting the sauce, rangetop, with onions, garlic, celery:

Tomato paste, then tomatoes, smoky paprika, oregano, Worcestershire, and beef broth added:


On the Egg, with my Dutch oven foiled to ease cleanup, dome 350ºF and three lumps of hickory, for 2 hours with one stir halfway through to make sure none of the meat was exposed to air:


Meat was kept under the sauce for the entire cook.

I had some past-their-peak green beans, so made a cream of green bean soup from a potato and chicken stock base, with a couple of morels, and garnished with the bacon used to produce the searing grease:


On the plate, cut and garnished with celery leaf:


The sauce flavor was mighty fine, but the beef didn't really grab me. It managed to be fork-tender and moist but somehow still chewy. I haven't had Swiss Steak in years, so it's possible I just don't like this cut of beef or this preparation. Still, it was nine servings for around $12 in food cost. I also found myself a bit impatient with the Guru to get things brought up to temperature. Seems faster when I do it myself; the Guru was excessively cautious about overshoot. Still, it held temp rock-steady once it got there.

Leftovers Foodsavered. Not sure if I'd do this cook again or not.

YB

That looks really good Dave...Thanks for the recipe.
Larry

TomM24

I can't help you with the bottom round. We would use chuck or short ribs for a cook like yours. I have had the same experience with the guru on higher temp cooks. When I use it I don't turn put it on until I am within 50 of the target. For low and slows I'll put it on shortly after lighting the egg.

Fidel

Good writeup. I strongly prefer using cube steak in this recipe for much better texture. I've used other cuts with decent results, but cubed meats just work better. I also like to put the lid on after about 45-60 minutes of cooking. This gets some smoky flavor in as the tomato seems to take it really well, but then closing the lid allows the dutch oven to do a bit of pressure cooking to the meat as well. This recipe is one of the few times I use a lid in the egg.

A tip with the ceramic coated cookware in the egg - yes, it will discolor but it wipes off pretty easily. For those stubborn stains I use a dab of soft scrub on a sponge and it wipes perfectly clean. Celtic Wolf posted that a smear of dish soap will prevent the discoloration, but I have never tried it.

Regarding the guru, don't put the temp probe in the egg until you are near your target temp. Just leave the probe hanging loose. The fan will blow non-stop and I promise you'll get to temps faster. But you have to watch it or you'll have a raging inferno pretty quickly.

YB

Good morning Rod...My Dad also used cube steak when making swiss steak and it was good.I remember my mother buying round steak one time and it was not even close to being as good as the cube steak.
Larry

Little Steven

Dave,

I would think that pounding the meat would help. It looks good.

Steve

Gunnar

I haven’t tried a bottom round roast. I used sirloin in my post, but that’s what was available when I did this cook. The overall flavor is definitely there. I’ll give cube steak a whirl next time.

Charleston Dave

Many thanks for the many helpful comments, guys. A few questions...

(1) Isn't cube steak just round steak that the butcher ran through his cubing machine? I used round steak b/c that's what Alton called for in the recipe. I did the Jaccarding with one of these:



By "aggressively Jaccarding" I meant that I went continually across the steak from left to right with the tenderizer, then rotated the steak 90º and repeated. I then flipped the steak and repeated the double pass. The thickness was reduced by almost half, and it looked like cubed steak, with lots of little stabs. I guess what I'm saying in my usual long-winded way is that I made the cubed steak myself, using the technique the Alton Brown episode that generated the recipe recommended.

(2) Thanks for the tip on SoftScrub, Fidel. I didn't want to de-season the iron and getting smoke stains off without soap is tricky. I probably need to just get some inexpensive outdoor iron for the Egg, but Eggcessories seem to be taking over my storage space.

(3) I will also try the lid-on-after-60-min idea. I loved the smoke flavor in the tomatoes, but I'm also a big fan of pressure cooking indoors and that's my preferred approach for pot roast. Good idea!

(4) Thanks for the idea of letting the Guru probe hang--I'll give that a try, with the knowledge that I need to stop at T-50º. I've got a big stack of owner's manuals around the house that I need to read one day! :blink: