Sterling Silver beef: the star of your summer BBQ
BBQ season is finally upon us! To celebrate, bite into some great quality products. Meet Sterling Silver, impressive beef with exemplary attributes, starting with guaranteed tenderness.
BBQ fans have been anxiously waiting for summer to arrive to cook their favourite dishes. Canada’s food guide recommends adding more plant-based proteins to your plate. It’s time to cut down on meat, but when you do eat it, look for quality—you can follow health and environment recommendations while enjoying summer to the fullest!
Sterling Silver: premium quality
Sterling Silver beef is a prime example of the unrivalled quality available in our butcher department. Hand-selected, this meat is aged at least 21 days, for optimum tenderness and enhanced taste.
Another sign of this beef’s premium quality is, without a doubt, its marbling, which is more abundant than usual for this type of meat. Marbling refers to the strands of fat inside the meat rather than around it. During cooking, these strands melt, providing juicier, tastier meat.
The aging and marbling of Sterling Silver beef is the reason why every bite is guaranteed tender, regardless of the chosen cut of meat! And that’s especially interesting for BBQ cooking. This fast, high-temp cooking is not typically recommended for less tender cuts of meat. In the case of Sterling Silver beef, however, all cuts are welcome on the grill!
Golden rules of grilling
For perfect grilling every time, follow these helpful tips.
- Let the meat sit at room temperature for 30 minutes prior to cooking to avoid a temperature shock.
- Use a meat thermometer to ensure the meat is cooked to your liking… just make sure you don’t use it over and over again! Poking holes into the meat to see if it is cooked could cause it to lose some of its precious juices. For medium-rare meat, you need an internal temperature of 63°C (145°F), and for medium doneness, it should reach 70°C (160°F).
- Or you can use the palm of the hand trick. Using a cooking tool (thongs or a spatula) to push down on the piece of meat, compare the firmness of the fleshy part of your palm, at the base of your thumb, when putting your thumb and index fingers together. For medium-rare doneness, put the middle finger and thumb together and compare the firmness of the meat with the fleshy part at the base of the thumb. And for medium doneness, compare again, but this time bringing the thumb and ring fingers together.
- Regardless of the chosen cut of meat, it’s crucial that you always let it sit 5 to 10 minutes before serving, covering loosely with aluminum foil without closing the ends. That’s the key to a juicy piece of meat cooked to perfection. To learn more, check out our meat cooking guide.
Perfect cuts for the BBQ
When comes time to choose your meat, some classic cuts just never get old. Flank steak is one of them. Our collaborator Manon Lapierre, aka La Petite Bette, created a video with her best tips for cooking flank steak, and suggests delicious sides for a most tasty dish.
Moreover, our ambassador Christian Bégin has a great marinade made from grilled sesame oil, lime, soya sauce, and maple syrup. The key to a great marinade is to have an oil (olive, canola), an acidic component (lemon juice, vinegar), aromatics (garlic, onions), and a sweetener (maple syrup, honey - optional). As you can see, the possibilities are endless!
Another cut of meat that never goes out of style on the grill is the T-Bone. A bone-in, colossal piece of meat, it’s a grilling cut par excellence. A 2.5 cm (1 in.) thick steak should be cooked 3 to 4 minutes per side for rare doneness. If you like it medium, cook it 5 to 6 minutes each side. You can serve it with a classic peppercorn sauce, or try a sweet-and-savoury version with stewed red onions and apricots. Yum!
The strip loin is another cut of meat to try on the grill. With more marbling than a flank steak, Sterling Silver’s strip loin was meant for grilling! For maximum tenderness, opt for rare to medium-rare doneness. And guess what? Josée di Stasio has a fantastic recipe for steaks with lemon-parsley butter, and the strip loin is just the cut for it. Plus, you can add lemon-parsley butter to just about any sauce, for grilled veggies, baked potatoes, or a quick pasta dish.
The art of finding the perfect sides
Such a high-quality meat calls for a delicious side, so why not opt for an abundance of colourful vegetables grilled to perfection? If you find yourself always eating the same traditional sides, indulge in some veggies you wouldn’t necessarily think of putting on the grill.
Leek is an excellent choice. You can cook it whole or sliced in half, lengthwise, keeping the foot, which helps prevent the leek layers from coming apart during cooking. Just 1 or 2 minutes per side is all it takes to grill leek on the BBQ. Serve it with a delicious lemon vinaigrette.
Green and red cabbage also grill nicely on the BBQ. Cut them in four and coat them with a mixture of softened butter, lemon zest and juice, fleur de sel, and freshly ground pepper. Grill them over medium-high heat for 7 to 8 minutes on each side, and voilà! You can also grill a half lemon per person, particularly the flesh side. It makes for a great garnish and adds a ton of flavour to your grilled dishes!
Discover more delicious sides suggestions here!