Step 1: I've set up this photo, as a general relationship of the cuts on an animal carcase, to show the orientation of a short lump of loin (you'd call it a loin roast) to the bottom of a rack of ribs. The loin cuts often being above and/or outside of the ribs.
STEVE BAIN says with respect to meat cuts, we use the term ‘loin’ as a descriptor for the cuts that run along the back (also known as the ‘dorsal’) of an animal.
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In this edition, we use the ‘butterfly’ technique to cut a loin ‘roast’ into pork steaks with a rounder-shaped or heart-shaped profile.
The one tip I’ll stress, is to start with a large lump of loin and to cut it initially into very wide pieces. These very wide pieces will then be cut in half, sort-of.
Hence why I recommend starting wide. How wide? Well, wider than you think!
Step 2: Start with a lump of pork loin (or a loin roast).
Step 3: Cut a very wide piece of meat from the end of the roast: 6cm wide, give or take a centimetre, is a good size.
Step 4: Looking down on the trimmed piece, from above.
Step 5: This side-on view of the trimmed piece is the important viewing perspective. From this view you can visualise how you are going to cut the trimmed piece in order to butterfly it.
Step 6: To create a butterflied steak, start with a wide piece of 'steak' from the loin.
Step 7: Then start cutting it in half (but not all the way through!).
Step 8: Once you've got halfway through cutting the piece of pork in half (down the middle), now switch to just using the tip area of the knife edge to slowly deepen and sculpt the incision.
Step 9: As you carefully cut, fold the meat outwards, ensuring that you leave it joined in the centre. The meat can now be folded out and will be double the width that it was (and still be quite thick — thick enough for a very desirable steak).
Step 10: The finished steak, butterflied and with the loin roast side profile in the background. I think this picture tells the entire story of the cutting (yes, you can trim most of the fat away from the outside perimeter of these steaks).
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