Braising steak is the name that confuses people. It looks like a small steak and it is not one. It is a slice of hard-working beef that needs liquid and time. Pan-fry it like rump and you will need a steak knife and an apology. Braising Steaks 5x 100g is five 100g pieces, a pot for three to four. Find them in braising steak and stewing beef.
Oven braise
Dry, salt, brown 2 to 3 minutes a side in a casserole. They are thin, so they brown fast; do not walk away. Onion, carrot, a spoon of flour if you want a thicker gravy, stock to come most of the way up. Lid on, 160°C for 2 hours, until a piece cuts with the side of a spoon. Rest in the liquor. That 100g piece will look small in the pack and generous in a pie or on mash because the sauce is half the meal. Extra Lean Diced Beef 400g is the cubed version of the same cook if you would rather a stew than slices — same brown, same 2 hours, in diced beef.
Slow cooker and pie
Slow cooker: brown, then low 6 to 7 hours. For a pie, cool the braise, check the seasoning, and bake under pastry at 200°C for 25 to 30 minutes. Braising steak makes a better pie filling than a frying steak you have hacked up, which is a waste of a rump. Chuck from the same slow-cook shelf is the larger joint version if you want to shred rather than slice.
Mistakes
The classic mistake is “it looks like a steak so I fried it.” The second is not enough liquid, so the 100g slices catch and turn to leather. The third is serving it the minute the clock hits 2 hours without checking it is actually tender. If it is still tight, it needs more time, not more heat. Shop slow cooker meat when you are building a week of pot roasts, and keep frying steaks in the steak collections where they belong. Leftovers freeze in their gravy for three months.
Five 100g pieces look like a mean shop and eat like a pie for four once the gravy is in the picture. That is the arithmetic of braising steak. If you wanted a frying steak, the rump and sirloin collections are the other side of the site; putting braising steak in a hot dry pan is how this cut gets a bad name it does not deserve.
Brown, cover, 2 hours, spoon-tender. That is braising steak, and the name is the instruction.