We all like a tender steak. The way you cut your steak can assist in this (as well as cooking it correctly and resting it). Some experiments have shown that cutting meat against the grain made a steak four times more tender than cutting with the grain, so it’s worth knowing how to do it correctly!
The “grain” of meat refers to the direction that the muscle fibres lie in your cut of meat. These muscle fibres are tough, as they support the animal in their movement. When you look at a piece of meat, see what direction the lines move across the meat. They look like long streaks and are visible when the meat is raw or cooked. Naturally they are easier to see in tougher cuts, where there is more muscle, than leaner cuts.
When you find the grain, slice at an angle of 90 degrees. The grain may run top to bottom or left to right depending on how the butcher has cut the meat, and depending on the cut.
Cutting against the grain reduces the length of the muscle, thus helping make your meat less chewy and more tender and locks in all those delicious meat juices.