Flapmeat cuts beef costs
Most people have never heard of flapmeat. That’s likely to change because it’s the latest steak on restaurant menus.
The cut is unusual: it’s a nugget of meat, highly marbled and has a triangular shape. It’s popular in Japanese and Korean cuisine.
And it’s come here, for a very good reason. It’s an alternative to the soaring price of meat.
“The price of meats and therefore steak has never been more expensive than what is has been in the past 12 months,” the chief executive officer of Vic’s Meat Anthony Puharich told the Herald Sun.
“Everybody has had to readjust because we have been so spoiled in terms on an abundance of incredible quality meat in this country and the price we have been paying for it. And now it’s a bit of a shock to the system for what we have been paying for a good bit of steak.”
“Butchers, us included, have had to be a lot more innovative in terms of what alternatives of what those big four steaks are. There has been a massive revolt, most restaurants are moving away from those three or four cuts because they have become more expensive.
Flapmeat comes from the rear of the animal, near the flank between the leg and belly.
Karl Firla at Oscillate Wildly in Newtown cooks it and has an exclusive deal with David Blackmore’s wagyu operation. He prepares it rare to medium-rare over charcoal, with fresh currants, black vinegar. The dish is served with charred Treviso radicchio, as part of $120 eight-course degustation menu.
“From a price point yes it is cheaper than the other types of cuts but it has a (good) yield and it has such an mazing flavour and texture,” M Firla told the Herald Sun. “It’s by far the best flavour for the money than any other cut on the animal.”
by Leon Gettler, 21st June 2016
