BG Cooks

[Dolmen]

Rub:
•2 garlic cloves pressed
•2 TB shallot minced
•2 TB parsley
•1 TB minced sage
•2 TB olive oil
Mix this up, it will look like wet herbs.

Then:
•2lb cut of flank steak - butterflied
•Add salt & pepper to the meat, but go light on the salt.
•Rub the rub mixture onto all off the meat, inside and outside.
•Spread the steak out and layer the inside with provolone, and then a layer of prosciutto.
•Roll steak up and tie with butcher's twine every ~1-1.5 inches. Remember to use a surgical knot with butcher's twine.
•Let sit overnight in the fridge. Letting sit even just 1 hour works as well.
•Soak wood skewers in water for ~30 minutes. Place skewers through the meat at each twine point, then slice meat halfway between each piece of twine.

Now you have what look like pinwheels. Grill to your liking. You can also broil them in the oven and the provolone will ooze out the top and brown, giving a very nice aesthetic value. The rub mixture has a salty flavor to it, thus why you should go light on the salt.

Makes ~8-10 slices, depending how your flank is shaped. It comes out very tender and juicy with multiple layers of flavor. Not a typical steak, but if you're having company they should love it.

[Correction]

Flank or Skirt Steak - From the underbelly of the steer. Highly flavorful, but tough and stringy. Cook medium rare; slice against the grain.

This is completely wrong. Medium rare skirt steak is like eating a cotton towel. You have to cook this shit well done.

[Qalbert]

This is completely wrong. Medium rare skirt steak is like eating a cotton towel. You have to cook this shit well done.

i just copypasted, link was from an older thread

[Correction]

Just saying it needs to be pointed out. You can't ever get around cooking skirt steak anything less than well done. Even the Mexicans know this :D

[Norelco]

If the steak is of any decent quality at all, it's a crime to use anything but salt and pepper, or cook beyond medium-rare. If you're slathering it in seasoning or overcooking it, you probably don't actually like steak and should just eat something else.

I usually just use a cast-iron pan indoors, so can't help ya on the grilling part.

Agreed. Salt and pepper.

If you are grilling, don't pull the steak directly from fridge to put on the hot grill. Will burn outside of steak.

I recommend letting it come up to room temp. Salt and pepper not more than 5 mins prior to throwing on teh grill. Get the grill hot...recommend 450 to 500 and let the grate get hot for like 10 min at least.

Take a rag or paper towel and soak in vegetable oil, use tongs to slick up the grill grates.

Put the steak on. Cook 2-3 min, then take steak and turn 45 degrees to get a crosshatch grill marks (if you care about that). after 2-3 min flip steak and repeat again. Total cook time should be no more than 10-12 min for rare/med rare.

Immediately take steak off and let rest for at least 5-10 min to let the juices reconsitute.

Enjoy.

edit: Beaten by Qalbert. I follow all those tenets of grilling a steak.

[Kerberoz]

Skirt steaks are best used for Mexican dishes, stir-fry, etc. Sliced up. Sirloin is the cheapest cut that's really worth making a "steak" out of, and even that's going to need a sauce and to be cooked past rare. Real "steak" = choice or prime ribeye, tenderloin, strip, or porterhouse/tbone. Otherwise it's just beef.

Marinade on a sirloin or lesser cut is totally acceptable. But then again, so is grinding it into a burger.

[Aerides]

I like to rub on a little worcestershire and Ex.Vg.OliveOil, salt and pepper, for about 10 mins before grilling.

[wop]

Couple of years back, I went to a steakhouse in Asia.
Overheard the waiter sy the next table asking "How would you like your steak sir? Medium?"
He replied "Umm.. Large please."

I almost choked on my coke.

[Shalafi]

My opinion is that steak should never be cooked beyond rare; but that is my opinion.

If grilling, rare is cooking each side on high heat for no more than 3 minutes.

A great rub I use is:

1/4 ts cayenne pepper
1/4 ts allspice
1/2 ts salt
1/2 ts black pepper
1/2 ts curry powder
1/2 ts dried thyme

makes enough for about anywhere from 1/2 to 1 pound of beef.

[Omnipotent]

Red Robin seasoning.

[Daydreamer]

A good piece of steak should only need pepper. You salt it after you cook it, so it doesn't dry out the meat.

The key to making a nice piece of steak is to sear it on both sides. This keeps the juices inside. .

No offense to you, but this is just wrong. Salting a steak before it is cooked helps break down the proteins in the steak as it cooks which actually makes more of the flavor molecules in the steak hit your tongue at the same once and actually makes the steak taste more like steak and, if using a sea or kosher salt, it helps to maillard effect (aka, the yummy crust everyone loves). Salt COULD dry out the meat, but you'd have to use an holy amount of salt and let it sit a long damn time before anything could happen. Hell there've even been experiments where people ground up hamburger meat with salt in it, checked the water consistency, let it sit for an hour, checked it again, and it was either the same or slightly higher. The water droplets on the outside people used to assume were from the burger were actually condensation from the surrounding air. The only thing salting after cooking will do (since it really hasn't had the heat to penetrate the meat and will just barely start to break down the proteins) is make a steak taste like steak and salt, and not a steak with a depth of flavor.

Next, searing the steak on both sides does NOT, I repeat NOT 'seal in the juices.' It actually cooks the juices out of the steak! However, it does once again create that nice yummy crust that everyone knows and loves so the majority of the time it is worth the compromise. I mean just think about this one, Something full of moisture being exposed to high heat, said moisture evaporates.

Source: Amazon.com: On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen (9780684800011): Harold McGee: Books

[Daydreamer]

And hell, as long as we're on the subject of science and food.

Here is why medium rare is considered optimal for "real" steaks (as put earlier, stuff like filet, ribeye, strips, and such).

Medium rare is roughly 135 degrees. In beef, this is the temperature in which the fat formed from the marbling in the steaks melts. This means that the steak has a better mouth feel or whatever you want to call it, and should be less chewy (because the fat has melted into a sauce like substance if you will) and have a better texture. Any temperature higher than this and you gain nothing except water loss caused by the proteins tightening and in essence, squeezing the moisture out of the steak, resulting in a dry and possibly tough steak.

Some people like their steak rare, where the fat has not yet melted, but I find this gives the steaks a bad texture, and is not for me.

One thing to remember though is that cooking is highly subjective, and if someone honestly likes their steak well done then who the hell am I to tell them otherwise? That being said, more people should at least give medium rare a chance.

[Norelco]

One thing to remember though is that cooking is highly subjective, and if someone honestly likes their steak well done then who the hell am I to tell them otherwise? That being said, more people should at least give medium rare a chance.

No way! Don't compromise! Anyone who cooks their steaks beyond medium rare is ruining a perfectly good piece of meat.

You forgot to mention that when moisture from the steak + heat of the gill interacts with the crystals of kosher/sea salt it melts the sauce onto the steak.

[aalryn]

Fresh ground sea salt & black pepper. Pam your grill before cooking. cook on high until med-rare. Let your steak rest, and brush with clarified butter. People will tell you to never salt meat. I can't explain enough how wrong this is. By salting meat before you cook it, you will sear on a crust that will make a sort of char flavor on the outside. If you ever put anything that used to be alive on the grill. Salt and pepper it.


If you want to do toppings there are options from here.

1. Melt bleu cheese on top. This can be done in the oven using the broil selection or put the cheese in a pan on the oven to melt it then pour it over your steak.

2. Make a reduction. Put some balsamic vinegar/red wine vinegar in a pot/pan add a little heavy cream, veal stock, s&p and let it reduce. Add in some mushrooms/onions if you like.

3. Saute some onions, mushrooms (button cut in half so they don't roll off, portobella, oyster, shitake), bacon sliced into about 1" square strips.


Or do what I do sometimes and do all 3.. OMGGOOD


If you use steak sauce you are doing it VERY VERY wrong.

A1; now it's ruined.



Important edit: Buy good meat. If you go to safeway and buy a pre-packaged steak it will never taste good. Packaged meats are kept moist which ruins the flavor of meat. The cut of meat they get there is also pretty bad. Go to a butcher or an upscale supermarket. It does not mean your meat will be considerably more expensive. I usually go to an upscale supermarket by my house that has an in-store butcher. I pay $8.99/lb for a bone in ribeye. The price is ridiculously cheap. The flavor can't be beat. I actually go there so much that all of the butchers know me by name and worry when I don't go in for a few days. I have never had a safeway/albertsons/giant/luckys steak that has ever had any flavor whatsoever.

[Norelco]

Fresh ground sea salt & black pepper. Pam your grill before cooking. cook on high until med-rare. Let your steak rest, and brush with clarified butter. People will tell you to never salt meat. This is wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. By salting meat before you cook it, you will sear on a crust that will actually lock in the interior juices and also make a sort of char flavor on the outside.

"This is wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong."

It has been proven over and over again that searing does not seal in the juices. The only benefit to searing is the crust.

[aalryn]

"This is wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong."

It has been proven over and over again that searing does not seal in the juices. The only benefit to searing is the crust.

edited based on what McGee says. Bobby Flay says differently and I tend to trust him more. I also work in a Ruth Chris/Mortons style fine dining steakhouse and they say differently too.

Regardless; If you don't salt your meat you are doing it wrong.


Edit: On a second reading I think you were referring to the searing of the steak like you would scalops, ahi, etc.. I agree with you and don't suggest searing. Poor choice of words on my part. I do suggest high heat though as a personal preference because I like to have a more cooked outside crust while keeping the inside rare/med-rare.

[Xfaustx]

list to faust he knows all about meat

lol nice Zal, but the grammar nazi in me decided to correct your obvious typo! oh and come back to WoW.

And to Daydreamer salt attracts water to wherever it is present in the meat, salt inside a burger will hold onto liquid (maybe minor amounts) but still holds onto it, salt on the outside will draw fluid out (again is minor and you would need to leave it there to have a noticeable effect). Just like when you work out you want electrolytes because they are contained with salts and help re-hydrate your body. Also when turning meat on a grill, don't puncture the meat with a fork to turn it, use a spatula, puncturing the meat can create holes for excess moisture to escape and also heat to enter the meat, drying out the steak faster. I do agree medium rare is the way to go.

And the reason searing medium rare helps keep liquid inside the steak is not because the crust prevents liquid from escaping, but because when you sear you are getting a quick cook on the outside without overheating the middle of the steak, and are generally moving the piece of meat into and out of heat very quickly. Low and slow heat on a grill only lets meat fall out of the meat and into a fire, you only cook low and slow when you are cooking meat inside a contained area, because it is cooking in liquids, and like daydreamer said fat melts at 135, and if you cook at a lower heat longer it more thoroughly melts the fat.

[Correction]

A lot of chefs oversell the 'seal in the juices' bullshit because like it or not raw meat loses liquid mass as it cooks whether or not you sear it. Alton Brown actually did the science and ran a show where he roasted two pieces of meat, one seared, one unseared and they both weighed the same at the end of cooking.

What searing DOES do is give you some nice flavor on the surface AND form a good base for a pan sauce. Without searing you get neither, and you may as well have boiled the meat.

[Xfaustx]

What searing DOES do is give you some nice flavor on the surface AND form a good base for a pan sauce. Without searing you get neither, and you may as well have boiled the meat.

Speaking of which I once had a guy walk into my restaurant and asked us to boil his steak and make sure there was no blood on the meat, it the was the most fucking disgusting gray lump of shit I had ever seen.

[Norelco]

edited based on what McGee says. Bobby Flay says differently and I tend to trust him more. I also work in a Ruth Chris/Mortons style fine dining steakhouse and they say differently too.

Regardless; If you don't salt your meat you are doing it wrong.


Edit: On a second reading I think you were referring to the searing of the steak like you would scalops, ahi, etc.. I agree with you and don't suggest searing. Poor choice of words on my part. I do suggest high heat though as a personal preference because I like to have a more cooked outside crust while keeping the inside rare/med-rare.

Yeah I think you misunderstand. I am pro high-heat and salting BEFORE cooking steak. I sear for flavor. I just don't agree that searing seals in any juices.