My old boss at the shop in Grand Rapids swore I should never trim silverskin off a tenderloin, and after 12 years I still can't decide if he was right | Butchers - Chatter Central
My old boss at the shop in Grand Rapids swore I should never trim silverskin off a tenderloin, and after 12 years I still can't decide if he was right
So back when I was apprenticing at a shop off Division Ave in Grand Rapids, my old boss Ray told me point blank that trimming silverskin off a whole tenderloin was a waste of time and money. He said just leave it, cook it hot, and nobody notices. I argued with him for weeks about it. Well, fast forward a few months and I did a 40 cover dinner for a country club account, left the skin on like he said, and got three plates sent back because it came out chewy as a rubber band. Ray just shrugged and said the customer was wrong. But here's the thing, I've also seen guys spend 20 minutes trimming a tenderloin down to nothing and end up with a piece of meat the size of my thumb, so maybe Ray had a point about yield. I still trim mine now but I leave a thin strip on the underside where it barely matters. So what's the call here, do you trim the whole thing clean or leave some on to save weight and time? And does it change if it's for a steakhouse versus a caterer?