Question – What Is Beef For Swissing? Answer – This product is a great addition to your menu for many reasons. It is easy to prepare and will have your customers coming back for more. Beef For Swissing is a low fat and nutritious meat product. The cows are grown in a natural environment and are fed natural feed with no added hormones, steroids or anti-biotics
Swiss Steak Recipe
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We’ve all heard of swiss cheese, but Swiss steak? Well, it may not be cheese, and it may not even be Swiss, but Swiss steak is a meal commonly served in many households.
Swiss steak is defined as a tenderized piece of meat simmered with tomatoes and other seasonings. The meat does not have to be beef, but this is usually the meat that is used for this recipe.
The recipe is not Swiss in origin. Rather, it is named for the process of swissing which is normally performed by smoothing cloth between a set of rollers. The recipe involves the meat being pounded flat, a method that can be likened to that of swissing, hence the name.
The dish first appeared in recipe books in 1915 and is referred to as ‘smothered steak’ in England.
Swiss steak is considered an economy meal. This is because the beef that is typically used is the rump or round, which tend to be cheaper cuts. Because the meat is tougher, the tenderization is necessary.
One common way to make the meal is to start by seasoning and tenderizing the meat. Then sear it in a pan until both sides are done.
Finally, place it in a casserole with an assortment of vegetables and cook it in the oven until tender. Some vegetables will have to be added gradually to avoid overcooking.
Swiss Steak in Oven
If you are cooking your swiss steak in the oven is important to keep it from drying out while it bakes. Here are a few tips for keeping the steak moist.
Brining meat before cooking it will help it retain more moisture. You can do this by soaking cuts of meat in water with 1/3 cup of kosher salt per 4 cups of liquid. For more flavor, substitute water with beer, wine, soy sauce, broth, fruit juice or vinegar and mix in complementary herbs and spices.
Covering the meat with aluminum foil will also help keep the juices in. However, note this may interfere with browning and crisping so use this method only if you are willing to sacrifice those other aspects for a juicier cut of meat.
Another method for keeping meat juicy is to take it out of the oven just before it reaches its internal target temperature. Smaller cuts of meat should be taken out when they are 3 degrees below target, heftier cuts should be taken out when they are 5 degrees below target and large roasts and whole birds should be taken out when they are 10 degrees below target.
This is because meat tends to continue cooking after it is taken out of the oven. If it continues to cook to the point where it overshoots its target temperature, it will start to dry out.
After food is removed from the oven, it should be left to rest. Smaller cuts should rest 10 minutes and larger cuts should rest 15 minutes. This will give the meat a chance to reabsorb juices. You can tent the food with aluminum foil while it’s cooling to make sure it doesn’t get too cool.
Swiss Steak with Mushroom Gravy
Many people just can’t have their steak unless there is a nice helping of gravy on top of it. Mushroom gravy can be the perfect topping for a Swiss steak since it is a beef and vegetable based dish.
Gravy is relatively simple to make since it is made from the juice of the meat that you are using while cooking, in this case, your Swiss steak. To make the gravy, it is best to get a quart of the stock, but you can supplement with store bought stock if necessary.
To make a great mushroom gravy, simply add butter, mushrooms and flour to thicken. You can season as desired, but we recommend adding salt, black pepper and fresh thyme leaves.
The recipe involves heating the butter and adding salt and mushrooms. Heat until the liquid evaporates. Then gradually stir in flour and beef stock and mix thoroughly. Season and simmer until thickened stirring often.
The recipe we have for Swiss Steak is pretty basic. In involves tenderizing the beef with a flour, salt and pepper mixture browning the meat in a skillet and then allowing it to simmer with the other ingredients until it is tender.
The difference in our recipe is that we do not allow the meat to bake in the oven. This may be the perfect way to avoid dryness, but cooks should still check regularly to make sure the meat isn’t overcooking and becoming dry.
Once the meat is cooked to perfection, you have a great meal to serve to your family. Bon appetit!
This Is The Best Cut Of Beef For Swiss Steak
Buttery, ultra-tender steak, dripping with juice — that’s what Swiss steak brings to the palate. Swiss steak is an undeniably comforting dish reminiscent of days gone by. Yet, Swiss steaks will never lose their luster and are just as welcome today as when the recipe first appeared in print in 1915 (via Gourmet Sleuth).
Despite the name, Swiss steaks have nothing to do with the Alpine country but rather the “swissing” technique used to tenderize meat. The swissing machine is a mechanical tenderizer that pounds out tough cuts of meat while creating distinguishable cube-shaped indentations on both sides (via The Spruce Eats). Tenderizing tougher cuts — those without marbling, like beef round — breaks up the connective tissue in the meat, making it easier to chew (via The Spruce Eats).
All About Meat adds that if a meat needs “swissing,” it’s typically not very tender. Tender meat can be achieved through the tenderizing machine, a few passes through a machine at your grocery store’s butcher, or a pounding with a meat mallet at home, all followed by a long, slow braise to get the meat soft enough to chew. This affordable cut of meat often used to make Swiss steak may also be labeled cubed steak.
Affordable, juicy and crowd-pleasing, Swiss steak checks all boxes
Simply Recipes asserts that authentic Swiss steaks are “round” steaks pounded to tenderized perfection, then browned and braised in a sauce until ultra-moist and tender. Recipe Tips emphasizes that long braising times are ideal for tougher cuts like bottom round to achieve the ultimate tender meat experience.
Gourmet Sleuth explains that Swiss steak is considered an “economy” meal. The classic recipe involves browning beef round in a hot skillet, followed by a slow braise in the oven, smothered with seasonings, onions, bell peppers, and, sometimes, canned tomatoes.
Spend with Pennies warns that Swiss steak is often confused with Salisbury Steak — but there’s clearly a monumental difference between the two. Salisbury steak is really ground beef (shaped into patties) served with a beef broth-based gravy. Swiss steak is actually steak and often served with a tomato-based gravy.
Once you get that steak in your hands, check out Alton Brown’s recipe for Swiss steak, a thin, tender steak smothered with onions, garlic, and tomatoes in a smoked paprika-spiked gravy.
Tender Braised Swiss Steak
Prep:30 mins
Cook:90 mins
Total:2 hrs
Servings:6 servings
| Nutrition Facts (per serving) | |
|---|---|
| 456 | Calories |
| 23g | Fat |
| 13g | Carbs |
| 49g | Protein |
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)SAVE RECIPE
Swiss steak is a braised beef recipe traditionally made with thick pieces of beef round, although you can also use chuck shoulder steak. The point of this dish is to use a tough cut of meat (such as mock tender steak), as a couple of hours of slow braising will tenderize it very nicely. In the Deep South or in the U.K., this beef presentation is also called smothered steak.
Although the Swiss steak name of this dish sounds like it hails from the European Alpine country, it does not. It is named for the tenderizing process of “Swissing.” Some Swiss steak recipes call for using thinner cuts of meat which are run through a meat cuber or “Swissing machine,” which is how cube steak is made for the purpose of tenderizing it. This type of mechanical tenderizing helps break up the connective tissue, making it easier to chew.
But this mechanized process is not necessary since braising is going to tenderize the meat anyway. Also, since using a cuber requires thinner cuts of meat, you do not want that. It takes away from the succulent, satisfying result you get with a thicker steak.
Beef round, if you are not familiar with it, is a cut of beef that comes from the rear leg and rump of the animal. As such, it gets a lot of exercise, which makes it tough, because the more exercise a muscle gets, the more connective tissue develops around the muscle fibers.
Some recipes call for you to dredge the meat in seasoned flour before browning it and then braising it, which only browns the flour, not the meat. Instead, directly brown the meat. It develops a lot more complex flavors than merely browning the flour.
Ingredients
- 2 pounds beef round steaks, 5 to 6 ounces each, about 6 steaks
- 4 tablespoons cooking oil
- 1 large onion, halved and sliced
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cups beef stock, or beef broth
- 1 (14 1/2-ounce) can diced tomatoes, including the liquid
- 1 bay leaf
- 3 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 1/2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
Steps to Make It
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- Gather the ingredients.
- Preheat oven to 300 F. Dry the meat thoroughly with paper towels.
- In a large Dutch oven, heat the oil until it is almost smoking, then gently add 2 or 3 of the steaks. The idea is not to overcrowd the pan. Brown one side for about 4 minutes (you want a nice, dark crust), then flip and brown the other side. Set aside the browned steaks and repeat until you have browned them all.
- Add the onion to the fat in the pan and cook for a few minutes until translucent and slightly golden brown.
- Stir in the flour with a wooden spoon and incorporate until a thick roux forms. Lower the heat and cook the roux for a few minutes, stirring frequently, until it takes on a light brown hue. Do not let it burn.
- Add the diced tomatoes and the stock. Season to taste with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper. Add the bay leaf and simmer the sauce for about five minutes or until it starts to thicken.
- Next, return the browned steaks to the sauce and arrange them so that they are covered by the liquid. Cover the pot and transfer it to the oven.
- Braise for about an hour and a half or until the meat is extremely tender. Serve each steak with a generous portion of the sauce.
What You Probably Didn’t Know About Swiss Steak
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Ah, Switzerland! What wonders has this gorgeous, alpine country given the rest of the world? Chocolate? Check. Knives? Check. Fondue? Check. Steak? Che — well, not exactly. As it turns out, Swiss steak is not really Swiss at all! According to Culinary Lore, Swiss steak may be named for the way it’s prepared. The term “swiss” means to pound or roll fabrics to flatten them. Similarly, steak must be pounded flat to create Swiss steak.
While some version of Swiss steak has been around since at least 1915, tomatoes weren’t added until the 1930s. Later, Reynolds played a big part in popularizing Swiss steak in 1947 by including a recipe that included frozen vegetables, and, of course, involved lining the pan with their foil. Common elements of today’s Swiss steak recipes include pounding round steak with flour, salt, and pepper, browning the meat in a skillet, finishing it off by adding onions and tomatoes, and cooking the combination in the oven or on the stovetop.
Making Swiss steak in a slow cooker
A popular spinoff of the traditional Swiss steak is a version that’s prepared in a slow cooker. The Magical Slow Cooker explains that the swissing action, or pounding of the meat, is not necessary when going the slow cooker route. Round steaks are preferred for the recipe, but there is some flexibility. Top or bottom round roasts, cubed steak, chuck roast, or cubed stew meat can be substituted.
The steaks are cut into thick slices, dredged in flour, salt, and pepper, and browned on a skillet. Beef consommé is added to the skillet; the browned steaks are thrown into the slow cooker. Any remaining flour and the beef consommé from the skillet are added to the steaks in the slow cooker along with tomatoes, onion, bell pepper, garlic, and Worcester sauce. The slow cooker is set on low for seven hours, giving you enough time to work up an appetite armchair refereeing two football games. Mashed potatoes, steamed rice or vegetables, salad, or garlic bread all make great sides for the finished dish.
How To Cook Perfect Steak 10 Different Ways
Steak is kind of a statement food, carrying with it associations of power, taste, and money, and for good reason. But there is far more to steak than a stereotype and a price tag, and treating every steak the same would be a foolish disservice. So next time you feel the need to eat a steak, stop before you blindly throw it on the grill. Read on because there’s more than one way to perfectly cook a steak.
Grill
If someone is planning to cook a steak somewhere in the USA, chances are this is how it will be done. Grilling steak is quick, simple, and after a short period of learning, hard to mess up. All you need is a grill (gas or charcoal), some steaks, salt, pepper, and oil.
Start up the grill and let it get nice and hot. Oil and season the steaks on both sides. When the grill is good and toasty, throw the steaks on and leave them alone for between 3-5 minutes a side, depending on how red you like them. When the time is up, remove the steaks from the grill and let them rest for a few minutes covered in foil — then serve.
If you like to be fancy, you can rotate the steaks halfway through cooking each side to achieve that classy cross hatch look. However, if you do everything else right, your guests won’t be in a position to notice that detail since they’ll have their eyes closed in an extended moment of steak-induced bliss.
Pan fry
Pan frying a steak is not dissimilar to grilling, except it doesn’t require you go outside. Just like the grill, you want to make sure your pan is hot. A cast-iron pan or a similar heavy-bottomed skillet works best because they hold more heat. And when you drop a steak into a hot one of those, the Maillard reaction has no excuse not to do its best work.
Martha Stewart recommends that instead of oiling the steak like you would for the grill, you simply salt and pepper the steak, then drop a lump of butter in the pan, and immediately cover it with the steak. Cooking times are similar as for grilling, but you may want to have a mesh splash guard handy and get your ventilation going. Otherwise, your kitchen will be covered in grease spots and your home will smell of fried meat for way longer than your ability to enjoy it.
Butter steak
The butter steak is a variation of the pan fry method, only with more butter and therefore more deliciousness.
This recipe starts out with a thick-cut ribeye steak. Put a nice cast-iron pan over a medium heat — but don’t add any oil. When the pan gets up to temperature, add the steaks but start them on their fatty edges, not flat at first. The plan is to render some of the fat and brown the edges slightly. Keep moving the steak around until all the fat has been browned. At this point, you should tip the steak on one side and cook it in its own fat for a few minutes, then flip and cook the other side for slightly less time. Pour off all but a little bit of the fat and add a generous helping of butter and crushed garlic. Season with salt and continue to cook. Baste the steak regularly with the butter and turn regularly to keep the heating even.
By using a medium heat instead of the usual hellfire hot, the steak should spend more time at the ideal temperature range for the Maillard reaction to take place, which is just chef talk for making flavor. For a steak around 1.5″ thick, you should aim for around 10 minutes a side for medium-rare perfection and a gorgeously browned and tasty crust.
Reverse sear
A tried-and-true technique for cooking your favorite lump of cow is to just throw it straight onto the hottest part of the grill. A common variation on this method for thicker steaks starts the same way, on a very hot grill, but quickly moves to an oven for a more gentle finish. Both those methods work, but there’s a better way.
The theory behind starting a steak on a very hot grill is that it seals the surface and traps the juices inside the steak. However, when you sear the outside of a steak, you aren’t actually sealing anything in. What you’re doing is dumping a whole lot of heat into the steak that kick-starts the cooking process. This is fine if the steak is thin or you like your steak rare because the inside gets up to temperature before the outside overcooks. But when it’s thicker or if you like things a little less myoglobin-y, things don’t work out quite so well. High heat and time are two of the ingredients a clothes dryer uses to remove moisture from your duds, and the same is true for steaks. Too much heat for too long is bad news, and when you sear the outside before moving to the hot oven, you’re raising the temperature side of that equation and removing moisture.
However, if you turn it around and start the steaks in an oven at 275 degrees (or on the cold side of the grill) for 45-60 minutes, then let rest under foil for 10 minutes before moving to a hot grill to sear the exterior, you are keeping the outside temperature of the meat lower while the inside heats up, which reduces moisture loss and results in a juicier steak. This reverse-sear method is a bit slower than a straightforward caveman-style meat and fire party and it definitely requires a decent meat thermometer to keep track of the internal temperature, but if your goal is evenly cooked steaks that are thick and juicy, then this technique is worth the time and investment.