How would I ask for skirt steak in a Zürich butcher? And is that cut available in German-style butchery? If not, what's the nearest equivalent?

I'll be using it for this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/14958045@N00/2856888330/

If anyone knows the name for this in all three languages that would help.

Anyone know the cut of meat for brisket, too?

You have no idea what my mind's visual of a skirt steak brought up.
The picture did not help either.
Try Oberschale.

That looks like Höhrücken, but it normally looks a bit better and in steak form here. My favourite

flankensteak apparently.

If it is steak for stewing, it may be Seidfleisch. It is less than < CHF 20 a kilo at my butcher, but you need to cook it for at least an hour. It is great for curry and casseroles.

now i understand how Lady Gaga got her fashion idea. The usage of "skirt" for this cut appears to be english specific.
Kronfleisch seems to be the german word for it.

I read that as Frankensteak. It conjured up all sorts of weird images of chops with extra eyes....

Take a look at the Flickr photo sequence. It shows a great way to make burgers from scratch without grinding the meat.

I've used seidfleisch for stewing before but I'm actually still not sure if it's a fairly generic term for stewing meat rather than a specific cut.

To get technical about skirt steak:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skirt_steak

It's good for a burger because it's full of flavour. You don't need to worry about the comparative lack of tenderness because the meat is going to be finely chopped.

Skirt steak is not flank steak. Different parts of the beast.

So the game is to map the area in blue on this diagram:



On to somewhere on this diagram. Somewhere between 3 and 8 I think.

Based on a quick search, in German the cuts you are looking for are Rippenbogen, Bauchlappen, Dünner Lempen or Flanke. Maybe a German speaker can comment on whether any of these are accurate. You may be after Brust or Nachbrust. It depends on exactly how you define 'skirt steak', as some butchers use the term interchangeably with 'flank steak'. For what it's worth, I've never seen this cut in any Swiss German or German butcher, so I suspect you have to ask for it. Take this picture along with you.

In France, though, the cut is very common. In French, you want to ask your butcher for bavette. They normally offer these in thin slices, but if you ask your butcher he'll give you a larger cut. More specifically, a bavette de flanchet is a flank steak and a bavette d'aloyau is a flap steak. Simply asking for a bavette gets you a piece from one end or the other of the long piece of meat at the bottom of the cow's belly.

It's one of my favourite cuts. We buy a bavette big enough for 3/4 people, marinate it, and cook it on the grill. I buy it as often as it's available in the summer months, but it tends to be hit-or-miss as to whether my butcher has it on any given day.

Thanks for that. It's definitely not flank, but lies next to it further forward. In that picture it looks like nachbrust.

And I suspect this is why you probably don't see it very often:


Siedfleisch und Hackfleisch aus: Brustkern, Federstück, Lempen, Hohrücken, Brustspitz, Nachbrust, Bug


The Swiss don't generally eat cheap cuts of meat, so it's ground into hamburger before you get a chance to ask for it.

I've been getting duenner lemmpen from my butcher for a while. I'm pretty sure it's close to flank steak. It's quite a good cut... I cook it with mole or rendang sauces, for the most part.

Not sure about skirt steak.

The following is copied from a site that came up on a Google search, which may be of help:

Are Flank Steak & Skirt Steak Identical Cuts? Are flank steak and skirt steak the same cut of meat?


No, but they come from the same general area of the cow — the flank or area between the ribs and hip.
The skirt steak is the diaphragm muscle. It is a long, flat piece of meat, with a tendency toward toughness. But it has good flavor. It can be grilled or pan fried quickly with good results. Another traditional method is to stuff it, roll it, and braise it. In many areas of the country (Texas, for example) skirt steak is the only cut to be used when making "real" fajitas.
The flank steak is the traditional cut used for London Broil. It is long, thin, and full of tough connective tissue. It is usually marinated before being broiled or grilled whole. Because it is tough, you usually slice it thinly on a diagonal across the grain to sever the tough fibers and make the flavorful steak chewable.

EDIT: a bit more dictionary looking and googling, led to this:

http://www.chefkoch.de/forum/2,57,42...-vom-Rind.html

Possibly this could be the term?:

"Kronfleisch"

EDIT 2: Maybe not the above - another link (Zwerchfell is Deutsch for diaphragm):

http://www.fleisch-shop.de/index.php?cat=c6_Rind.html

now gives:

"Saumfleisch"

EDIT 3: Take care when getting a dictionary translation for diaphragm, or the butcher may re-direct you to a gynaecologist.

Thanks for that, TiMow. The problem is that (particularly in the UK, less so in the US), the two terms are used interchangeably. I realise that a 'flank' steak and a 'skirt' steak are two different cuts, but almost anything that comes from the bottom of the cow and has a distinct grain to it is sold as a 'skirt' steak in the UK. I wasn't sure if the original poster meant the specific 'skirt' steak, or whether any of the lean, flavourful cuts from the underside of the cow would do -- which is why I gave both options.

As I said in my earlier post about bavettes in France, most French butchers seem to cut off the entire underside of the cow in a single, long strip. It's usually about 12-14" wide and over 3' long. They'll then cut individual bavette steaks off this, and unless you specify which end you want, your steak can come from any part of this.

And aside from the thickness of the steak itself, I find that most recipes that call for skirt steak work fine with flank steak and vice versa. I like both, and tend to marinate them and cook them over high heat, serving them rare to keep them tender.

All this talk of steak made me crave a bavette of my own this evening, but alas, it was not to be. My French butcher didn't have any in stock aside from the ones already thinly sliced and on the shelf. So it's a pot au feu for us...

The copied text was sourced from a US site.

Similar to this pic.?

I think it would be a huge sin to use it for grinding into burgers, but we get our skirt steak here (and have it shipped to my mother in law over the border in Germany): http://www.otto-gourmet.de

Search for "Wagyu Skirt Steak" on the site. This is the top quality stuff, that which the Argentinians call "entraña". It's my favorite cut of steak, so I pay the steep price to be able to continue eating it here in Europe. And I'm the only woman I know whose in-laws gave her a big drawer of frozen meat for a Christmas present. It was the best present I've gotten in years.

For those searching locally, you might not be able to find a good one. When I first moved here and was trying to find it, I drove to Luzern and asked at the Argentinian restaurant there. The owner is Argentinian, and he told me not to bother with local beef. He said that even if I was able to get a butcher to cut me the right piece, the quality of the milk cows they use for beef here makes it taste inedible if you're used to the good beef cow cuts. He doesn't serve entraña at his restaurant for this reason. For me it was shocking and sad to see an Argentinian restaurant not serving it.

The above link from flacaflaca, also confirms Saumfleisch as (hoch-) Deutsch translation, for "a bit of skirt" (beef variety).