Steak essentially rubbery in quality (1-4)
I believe the answer is:
t-bone
'steak' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'essentially rubbery in quality' is the wordplay.
'essentially' says to take the centre.
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'quality' becomes 'tone' (synonyms).
The middle of 'rubbery' is 'b'.
'b' put within 'tone' is 'T-BONE'.
(Other definitions for t-bone that I've seen before include "Choice piece of loin steak" , "Type of steak" , "Cut of beef" , "Choice cut of steak" , "Large cut of steak" .)