British BBQ Society Forums

Hanger steak is a great misunderstood cut of beef, there is usually a thin coarse piece of gristle than runs through the middle, and so it is often slow cooked to tenderise this. But if cut correctly against the grain and discarding the tough bit, then this is such a good steak cut, very beefy and savoury with a lovely texture. These Hanger steaks were from Pipers Farm once again, and were outstanding in their quality.

The other thing that needs to be known is that they need to be cooked very quickly, as they toughen up if cooked past medium-rare, and the quicker you cook them the better. To this end, I decided to emply the “Afterburner” cooking method using a BBQ chimney starter, the heat at the top of one of these is ferocious once it gets going and this would be a great way to get BBQing for someone with limited space. So I fired up the chimney starter (which can be bought in most DIY chains) with Lumpwood charcoal until it was raging hot.

I had cut the steaks into long slithers, I popped on a little BBQ rub and slid onto some pre soaked bamboo skewers. Use a sheet of foil to stop the ends of the skewers burning, and pop them onto a grill grate from a BBQ.

These babies took simply seconds to cook, the heat was that intense, a simply amazing way to cook this wonderful cut, they were wonderful and deep flavoured, and about as tender as a steak gets.

Cheers
Marcus

Goodness, that looks great. I have never really found hangar steak readily available, but have eaten it and it was prepared in a very similar fashion, charred over a very hot fire and served immediately. I have used the afterburner (love that name), method for other steaks as well, you get a fantastic char on the outside but you also get a good rare-medium/rare going on in the inside... Thanks for the pic!!

Thank you
It's not easy, but a good butcher should be able to sort you out.
It's a lot beefier in a great way than a lot of other steak cuts, I love it!
Love the "Afterburner" too
You're welcome, been doing a lot of grilling recently as well as the low'n'slow stuff
Cheers
Marcus

This looks just like the 'feather' steak they sell in Waitrose' meat counters

It certainly has the same grain and collegen marbling patterns

I think hanger comes from near the flank, whereas the feather cut comes from near the blade.

Love the marbling on that, looks damn sexy.

going to have to try that, i think.

Yes I think do too, the hanger steaks are thicker with a line of gristle running through the middle, I just cut slithers off either side of this. So would be similar to feather. This was really high quality beef too.
Cheers
Marcus

KamadoSimon wrote:I think hanger comes from near the flank, whereas the feather cut comes from near the blade.

The flank (think belly ) runs into the blade (think spare-rib - butt) so very similar in quality.

Ok - i isn't a butcher

I did a bit of gooooogling on this - most sites seem to think that hanger comes from below the diaphragm of the cow (ie the muscle 'hangs') and (according to wikipedia) is known as skirt in the UK. Whereas the feather steak comes from up by the blade on the shoulder of the cow.