Recipes

The dinner that turns up at the table still sizzling

Fajita night is the easiest win in the book. Thin-cut topside is lean and even, which means a citrus marinade gets right into it in half an hour — no overnight planning required. Then it's a ripping-hot pan, a couple of minutes on the beef, charred capsicum and onion, and a stack of warm tortillas in the middle of the table. Everyone builds their own, everyone's happy with theirs. And the cook, for once, just sits down and eats.

The snack drawer's answer to "what's topside actually for?"

Long before fridges, drying was how you kept beef — and topside was always the jerky cut, because meat this lean dries clean and even, with no fat to spoil. Here's the good news: your steaks arrive already sliced thin, which removes the only fiddly step. A soy, brown sugar and cracked-pepper marinade, an afternoon in a barely-warm oven, and one pack becomes a week's worth of proper jerky — with nothing in it you didn't put there. The house smells incredible, and the jar never lasts as long as you planned.

Sweet, savoury, and gone before the rice is

Korean cooks worked this out generations ago: take lean beef, slice it paper thin, and let a grated nashi do the tenderising. The fruit softens the meat while soy, garlic and sesame build the flavour — and thin-cut topside is exactly the lean, even steak the method was made for. An hour in the marinade, a few minutes over ferocious heat, and dinner comes out glossy, caramelised at the edges and disappearing fast. Rice underneath, lettuce leaves alongside if you're being civilised about it.

The marinade that does the heavy lifting so the BBQ can do the rest

Topside is one of the best cuts to marinate — its lean, open-grained texture drinks up a marinade beautifully, and the acidity in the marinade does meaningful tenderising work overnight. The result, on a hot BBQ, is a charred, flavourful, juicy steak that over-delivers on its humble origins.

The fastest proper dinner you can make — and it tastes like you tried

A minute steak is exactly what it sounds like: a thin steak that cooks in about a minute per side. When your topside arrives pre-sliced, it is already primed for this treatment. The key is a hot pan, dry meat, and a quick pan sauce that transforms the browned bits left in the pan into something worth pouring.

A main-course salad with genuine substance and serious flavour

Warm beef salad sits in that ideal space between a proper dinner and a light meal — substantial enough to feel like a main course, fresh enough to feel virtuous. The topside steak, pan-seared and sliced thin, works beautifully here: its lean, clean flavour is a perfect counterpoint to the bitterness of rocket and the sweetness of roasted capsicum.

30 minutes, one pan, a genuinely excellent weeknight dinner

Your topside arrives as thin steaks, which makes it ideal for stir-fries — just cut them across the grain into strips and you have tender, quick-cooking beef ready for the wok. The key is to keep the strips even, cook them fast, and not overcrowd the pan. Everything else takes care of itself.

The schnitzel that changed someone’s mind about topside

Schnitzel is arguably the best thing you can do with a thin, lean steak. The pounding tenderises the meat, the breadcrumb crust adds texture and flavour, and the whole thing cooks in under 5 minutes. Your Farmer topside arrives already cut into thin steaks, so a quick pound to 5mm is all the prep they need — and the result is a schnitzel that is genuinely extraordinary: better than veal, better than chicken, and miles ahead of anything that comes in a supermarket packet.

Lean, flavourful — and the secret to the best cold beef sandwiches of your life

Topside is lean, which means it wants gentle heat. Your topside arrives as thin-cut steaks, and a short spell in a low oven with moisture in the pan, followed by a fast sear, turns them into rosy, roast-beef-style slices. It appears in all four of your share packs, which means developing a relationship with this cut is one of the best investments you can make as a Your Farmer member.