Outside Skirt – beef crown meat
Philipp Sontag from the Sontag butcher's shop in Kisslegg: "Here I pull the opened abdominal wall of the entire beef carcass outwards to get a clear view of the two outside skirts. The diaphragm is still closed and intact. The liver and kidney cones (visible above my elbow), as well as the lungs, heart, esophagus and trachea (all not visible) are still in the carcass. I have removed the kidney on the left so that you can see the left fillet. On the right, however, the kidney and kidney fat are still there."
The outside skirt is one of the pieces that I was naturally familiar with from the "old" German butcher's point of view. When customers asked for this piece as a "special cut", I thought to myself: Of course... crown meat. Even as an apprentice, I was told that this piece, both pork and beef, was a well-known delicacy among butchers. We always cooked it warm from the slaughterhouse directly in the kettle and ate it with salt on the cutting table for lunch.
Its English name comes from its appearance, which is very reminiscent of the gathered hem of a skirt. The Germans probably had the same idea when they saw it and called it saumfleisch or crown meat. Anatomically, the outside skirt is the diaphragm muscle. It is attached to the sides of the ribs like a ring in the chest cavity and is responsible for breathing in living animals. The diaphragm is stretched in the middle of this ring and moves with each breath. A distinction is made between the outside and the inside skirt. They look almost the same when trimmed, although anatomically they have nothing to do with each other. The outside skirt hangs on the inside of the halved carcass and probably gets its name from that. Just like the flank, it is more impressive for its strong flavor than for its tenderness. I would definitely not cook it through, but enjoy it rare or at most medium. I hope everyone knows that a piece of meat becomes firmer when bitten the closer we get to the well-done status. Our skirt also has an unmistakable direction of the meat fibers, which must be cut through and (quickly) cut into thin strips after grilling! I cannot explain the difference in tenderness between bull and heifer in two sentences. I would just like to mention here that I am convinced that skirt steaks from bulls should be made into minced meat or sausage. On the other hand, the fat, marbled heifer is a revelation of true, intense meat flavor. If there is intramuscular fat in a cow, it will show through more in some muscles and less in others, or almost not at all. The skirt steak is at the top in the marbling category, which of course underlines its flavor even more.
1. I point the tip of the knife at the outside skirt.
2. The diaphragm is cut open to the right and left of the renal cone.
3. The kidney plug is removed with the loop (thus the gutting is completed).
4. Now the outside skirt is visible hanging on the outside and is cut off from the pleura and removed.
5. The diaphragm is removed on the cutting table.
7. The outside skirt is trimmed and now has the characteristic shape of a skirt hem.
Now it's time to grill! How about delicious skirt steak skewers with grilled fennel from Bjoern Terhorst? You can find these and other recipes for skirt - crown beef in our recipe database and of course there is even more meat and butcher knowledge from Philipp Sontag in the FIRE&FOOD magazine or in our practical and affordable eDossiers .