sinew from sirloin

[stuckinthemud]

I was chatting with the butcher and asked if he could get hold of back-strap sinew (the cords each side of the spine) and he sort of pulled a face and said mostly not as they tended to be removed at the abattoir but had I thought of sirloin sinew?  This is new to me, never heard of it, but he wandered off and came back with an 18" long (beef) sinew for me to test.  Anyone got any experience with this sort of sinew? It is quite fatty but no tangle at the 'y' as in a leg sinew a really good long length and easy to get - he gets about 8 of these every week in the shop but they have little use for it as 'its a bit chewy'

[Ryan Jacob]

Might as well test it out. If it doesn’t work, boil the heck out of it in a soup

[Pat B]

it is called silver skin by butchers. Sinew is sinew, it would probably be like back strap sinew. I've used cow leg sinew and really likes te way it worked. Seemed to be softer, more malleable but just as strong.

[hoosierf]

No reason it won’t work. I buy whole beef tenderloins and butterfly them for steaks. I always harvest the tendon and about three or four of them will cover one layer on a short bow.

[PatM]

It's all the same, just from a different location on the animal.

[stuckinthemud]

its dried out very nicely in the hot sun (we do get one or two hot days over here -it got up to about 70 degrees yesterday, might get up to 75 by Wednesday, roll on September, its too bloomin hot; so, leg sinew, silver skin and backstrap, are there any other places to harvest sinew?

[PatM]

Sinew is present wherever a tendinous attachment of a muscle occurs.  It just comes down to that being a large enough portion worth bothering with.

[stuckinthemud]

Thanks Pat, its becoming clear that my knowledge of basic anatomy/butchery is woeful; let me re-phrase, assuming I am not boiling the sinew for glue, which bovine sinews are above 6" in length, other than silver skin, back-strap and ankle?