Food - Drink
Why It’s Crucial To Properly Cut Steak For Fajitas
By MATTHEW SPINA
Cooking steak so it's tender and chewable is essential to great fajitas, which are generally made with bigger strips of beef that can be quite tough to eat if they’re chewy.
Beyond making sure you don't overcook the steak, the way you slice it has a big impact on tenderness. A steak's muscle fibers can be tough to bite through even when cooked right.
Steak is made up of long, tough muscle fibers, and you need to cut your meat across these fibers, or “again the grain,” instead of slicing the meat parallel to these fibers.
You should see quite a few thin lines, almost like tiny indents, running parallel to each other across your steak. You’ll often see thin lines of fat running in the same direction.
Proper slicing is as simple as cutting perpendicular to those lines once the steak is cooked. This way, you'll have long strips of steak that are still tender for your fajitas.