You're always hearing that a tougher cut of meat like a brisket or a shoulder be cooked low and slow to break down the tissue and be tender. I have also heard (by the experts) that a tough cut of meat like a flank steak be cooked no further than medium rare for tenderness? How does one know what doneness goes with a tougher cut of meat?
Meat – How to know the doneness for a tough cut of meat
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I think you've got a wide berth of possibilities but what's above seems pretty restricted. What you are listing above sounds like a pretty straight-forward Midwestern American chili. It has the features of the standard chili spices, beans and tomatoes, with a nice variety of meats.
As @Cold suggests, beets would be great to add for their sugar content. However, there are quite a few American recipes that utilize potatoes, so you might seek those out. Are there other vegetables to substitute that you recall as more native? Other beans maybe? How about caraway, dill, chervil, tarragon?
Vodka would seem like an easy route to go to appease the indigenous aspect, but I don't think it would yield much results in terms of impacting the flavor; especially in the context of the extant chili recipe. Unfortunately, I can't see the benefit of buffeting vodka against the flavors of cumin, coriander, clove, let alone hot peppers. On the other hand, Russians produce some amazing beers (I am a big fan of Baltika), and I would recommend looking into switching to a lager flavor or Imperial Stout as I mentioned above.
But for real, my spin would be to approach this from a Solyanka point of view (which would definitely give you ceiling room to try incorporating Medovukha); or really any of the other amazing cold Russian soups. Or perhaps try to incorporate mini dumplings like Pelmani, mini Kotlety, or use Shashlyk-style prepared meats for the chili. I would also consider trying to get some lamb in the recipe, in particular at the expense of the chicken.
But don't forget, chili is all about what you want to put into it (<-- self-promotional plug); not what the standard template lists.
- The romantic version of the American myth about chili (in particular, Texas Red chili) frequently revolves around Cowboys planting peppers and onions on their most traveled roads. They would be carrying dried meats and, at night under starry skies, use kettles to cook the stew that became known as chili.
- What kind of story of Russian kindred spirit do you want to weave with your chili?
There's a few things that could be going on here:
- cut: not all steak cooks at the same rate. Really tender cuts cook faster than some of the tougher, more flavorful cuts, increasing cooking time by up to 50%. Cuts like tenderloin, filet, and loin (US) - Sirloin (UK) are more tender and cook faster. Denser cuts like sirloin, top sirloin, and bottom sirloin (US) and rump (UK) cook slower. If you are cooking a denser cut then you simply need to cook it longer.
- Pan heat: Most chefs have really good stoves that produce load of heat, most mere mortals have average stoves which aren't as powerful. Medium heat on a professional, or very high quality stove is hotter than the medium heat on an average stove, so try cranking it up to full blast. Also, make sure your pan is fully up to temp. I cook my steaks on a cast iron skillet, and I let it heat up for 10 minutes before I start frying steak
- Heat contact: even though steak is full of fat it takes some time for this to start working, so coating your steak with a bit of vegetable oil (not olive oil, it burns at high temperatures) will make sure it gets good heat contact
So my advice would be to get the pan hotter and cook it longer. Try adding one more minute per side.
EDIT: @kenny says that he is cooking loin, so assuming it's 3/4", or 2cm thick and looking for medium done-ness I would cook the first side for 5 minutes and then the second side 3 minutes. The uneven times are to make sure it cooks evenly. So you need a total of 8 minutes cooking time. I don't do the flip every minute method because the uneven times work for me, and it lets me do other prep.
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There are two basic cooking methods for tough cuts:
The thing is, while many people mention the second method, it's still going to produce a relatively tough piece of meat. Some people claim that you could take a piece of chuck steak or round steak and make it as tender as a ribeye as long as you cook it fast and don't overcook it. That's just not true, but it's a way of cooking the meat fast, while minimizing the amount of toughness that occurs with fast cooking.
Usually you'd want to do this either with very thin steaks (which is one the reasons flank is often sliced very thin) or with the type of meat that you'd slice into thin strips before serving. Many people cook a traditional "London Broil" this way (which tends to be a relatively lean and somewhat tough cut): very fast cooking on both sides, then slice thinly and serve.
The reason for these two conflicting pieces of advice is that "tough" meat reaches its maximum toughness when it's just "well-done." You generally want to cook it to medium-rare, because that's when beef is juiciest, so you get juice and still less tough. But once you go beyond medium-rare, it just gets tougher and less juicy. At that point, the way forward is to continue to cook for a long time, which will eventually break down the tissues that make the meat tough (as you note), so you'll end up with thoroughly cooked but more tender meat in the end.