Most people have never even heard of this elusive wonder, and it's no surprise why. It sometimes goes by another name, the Butcher's Steak, on account of the butchers would tend to keep this piece of meat for themselves rather than sell it. Reason being is that it is said to contain more flavor in it than the Tenderloin, though it's not quite as tender.
Now that you know some of the history of it, you should learn about the etymology and where it comes from on the cow: it hangs off the diaphragm, which is why it is called the Hanger Steak (sometimes also known as the Hanging Tender). A lot of people are going to think "ew, it's the diaphragm!" but in reality it's one of the best areas: smack dab between the Lungs, Heart and Liver. The Lungs provide fresh oxygen, making it a very healthy muscle; the Heart provides it with fresh blood, making the flavor intense; and the Liver provides it with very clean fluids, making the flavor very clean.
Since it's not a very popular cut of meat in the household, there aren't very many recipes for it. You also don't want to experiment with too many flavors with this cut, since it is very flavorful on its own.
My experiences with it have been excellent so far. I had received six 5oz steaks from work. It was a "new" product that we've never carried before, and my boss thought it'd be nice if I knew about it, so he gave me a "demo" of it. I asked him how much they would be in case I wanted to buy some at a later time, and he said that it's $9.90/kg ($4.50/lb) and that a whole roast would be ~$13, so I bought a whole roast.
Since they were frozen when I got them, I threw the steaks into the fridge to thaw out over a couple days, and tossed the roast into the freezer. Two days later I pulled the steaks out and they were ready to go, however I think I had them sitting too close to the back of the fridge as one of the steaks was still frozen solid.
My boss also gave me a recipe to try with the steaks, so I thought "Hey, why not give it a try? I don't know what else might go with it, so I'll use a pre-approved recipe before I make my own." It was pulled off of Epicurious, so I'll just post a link to it.
They turned out amazingly. I was not expecting the steaks to have that much flavor, and the shallots in red wine vinegar (I used half a cup of the vinegar since I didn't have any red wine at the time) really pushed it over the edge for me.
Now it's been roughly 3 weeks since then and I figured I'd give the roast a try. I wanted to do something different with it that I've never tried before (my roasts are usually just baked in my toaster oven, smothered in a sauce, and cooked to perfection). The week before I bought the roast, I was at my cousin's wedding and her brother was doing the catering. He told me that the roast he made was simply marinated in red wine overnight, half of the wine was drained, then it was roasted in a slow-cooker for about 5 hours. Super easy and it tasted phenomenal, so I decided to go with it. I ran to the liquor store to find the cheapest and biggest bottle of red wine (if you ever plan on cooking with wine, NEVER use the cooking wines found in grocery stores or anywhere else. If you would never drink the wine out of a glass, then you shouldn't cook with it either) and it was a 1.5L Cabernet (which pairs nicely with red meats) for only $12. I also got another Cabernet Sauvignon for $5 (750ml) that I was planning on drinking, but I ended up having to pour the majority of it in with the other bottle to top it off.
I set the roast in my slow-cooker dish and poured the wine over it, then let it sit in the fridge for the night and part of the next day. Since I was marinating it in my slow-cooker dish, I didn't need to worry about the mess from transferring dishes and draining and all that. When it came time to start cooking it, I simply poured off about half of the wine down the drain, then set the temperature to Low (my slow-cooker has Off, Low, High, Keep Warm) for the first 20 minutes to let the dish warm up a bit, then cranked it to High for 40 minutes to boil down the wine into a nice thick sauce, then set it to Low again for the next 6 hours, adding a couple handfuls of baby carrots.
I don't know if I would recommend doing this marinade, as I felt it covered up a lot of the flavor that I was tasting in the Shallots with Red Wine recipe. However, it did tenderize the meat to the point where I barely had to chew anything before it just fell to shreds. Perhaps if I ever get my hands on more of these beauties, I shall simply bake it like a traditional roast or try grilling/broiling it like a steak.
