Is the problem that you want to use the higher grade of steak while you still have lower quality in inventory? If so, remember that the tradeskill UI will always select the lowest quality item for each ingredient you have in inventory first.
If you want to use the better quality, you can use a button located to the right of each ingredient to change the selected ingredient. Hitting the buton brings up a list of available and selected that you can add and remove items from.
To check on which ingredient is currently being used, hover your mouse pointer over the item in the UI list and a pop up will tell you which quality it is.