Cooking & Baking

It does take special equipment, but the idea is to cook the meat at far lower than boiling temperatures for long periods of time.

Here's the dilemma you have with blade steak, or really any tough cut of meat. If you cook it like you normally would with tender cuts normally reserved for steak, then the meat fibers are going to tighten up and give it the consistency of boot leather. It takes about 6 hours at 135F to transform the collagen into gelatin. At higher temperatures the process happens faster. So with sous vide the process is simple. You just vacuum seal the meat, put it in a 135F water bath for 6 hours or up to 3 days, then you take it out and sear the outside. Voila! Medium-rare steak. Not just steak, but very tender and tasty steak. So whether or not it's worth it to invest in the hardware to do it depends on how often you'd want to do it and how attractive an option that is for you. The great thing about this method is also convenience. Since you are cooking by temperature, and not time, you can put the meat in the water bath in the morning and it will be ready by dinner time. Within reason, it's pretty much impossible to overcook.

There are other ways to tenderize a tough piece of meat. Acidic marinades do work, but they work better if assisted with mechanical means to cut through the muscle fibers. For that you'll need a Jaccard. I like the 45 blade model that comes apart for easier cleaning. You can expect to pay about $20-30 for that. Naturally you'll need a boneless blade steak for this to work, preferably sliced to about 3/4". You simply knife the meat from one end to the other, moving the Jaccard one blade width each time, turn the meat 90 degrees and knife it again, then turn it over and repeat the process. Marinate overnight in a vinegar or other acid based marinade of your choice and cook as you would a steak.

Another thing you can do is do this exclusively with a mechanical method. Grind it with a meat grinder with just one pass using a coarse blade. If you don't have a meat grinder you can have the butcher do this for you. Then just mix in some seasoning, form it into the shape of a steak, and cook it as you would a steak.