Tripped over a beef skirt mistake that cost me 15 pounds of trim last week

I work at a shop just outside of Omaha and I kept seeing these ragged strips of meat getting tossed into the offal bucket. Nobody said nothing about it for weeks. Then I noticed it was the skirt steak from the flank end that people were cutting too close to the membrane. You lose like a half pound each time if you slice into that silverskin instead of peeling it off clean. I had to show my apprentice three times last Tuesday how to work a boning knife under that thin layer without gouging the muscle. He was wasting about 10 percent of his yield every shift. Have you guys seen this mess up in your own kitchens or is it just the new hires here?

3 comments

3 Comments

alice_palmer2024d ago

That line about "silverskin instead of peeling it off clean" really caught my eye. It reminds me how often people rush through the small details in life and end up paying for it later, whether it's trimming meat or filling out paperwork. I see this same kind of carelessness at the grocery store when folks grab produce without checking for bruises, or at the hardware store when they buy the wrong size bolt because they didn't look close enough. You have to slow down and learn the right way to do things, or the waste just piles up on you.

the_evan24d ago

Did you try showing him a trick with the knife handle to pop that membrane loose?

the_joseph23d ago

You really think that's the right way to teach him though? Honestly I gotta disagree. If you keep showing a new hire the same finicky knife trick over and over you're just wasting your own time and his. Some guys just need to make the mistake a few times before it clicks in their head. Let him waste that 10 percent for a couple weeks. He'll figure it out on his own when he sees his paycheck is lighter or when you point out the pile of waste at the end of the shift. Ngl the silverskin thing is annoying but having to stop your own work three times in one shift to reteach the same move is even worse. Tbh you might be better off just letting him struggle through it natural like.