I have just grilled a AA boneless strip loin on the B.B.Q. I thawed it out in the fridge overnight. It was about 1" thick. I removed the outside moisture with paper towels and seasoned with salt and pepper. I grilled it on just off high (the thermostat read 400). Aesthetically, it was cooked to a perfectly medium rare, quite pink in the centre with distinctive grill marks. Only problem, it was dry and tough. It tasted like a well done steak! Did I miss an important cooking technique or was it simply the quality of the meat? Again, it was a AA with a reasonable amount of marbling.
Meat – Not a tender steak
grillingmeat
Best Answer
You must be in Canada. The Canadian beef grading system is as follows, and these are all considered in the category of "high quality":
Prime - abundant marbling, about 2 percent of beef is graded as prime
AAA - small amounts of visual marbling, very high quality, up to 50% is graded AAA
AA - slight amount of marbling, a step down from AAA, 45% of beef is graded AA
A - the lowest rating, up to 3% of Canadian beef is rated A. Less evenly distributed fat...needs more attention and care when cooking.
Given the AA rating, you probably did not have much fat/marbling to help the texture.
One suggestion is to employ sous vide cooking. With this approach, you can make cuts more tender by cooking them longer, but also retaining the desired level of doneness.