Skirt Steak
Posted: Sat Jul 08, 2006 6:08 pm
Pan seared skirt steak was the 3rd or 4th recipe in Alton Brown's "I'm Just Here For the Food". It looked uncomplicated enough to be workable for a quick dinner, so when I saw some skirt steak on sale in the meat aisle in my local Walmart, I picked up an 11 inch piece for $4.10 and took it home.
Kosher salt, ground pepper (rubbed in by hand), a squirt of canola oil from a spray bottle on each side, and into an iron skillet that had spent 5 minutes on medium high heat getting warmed up. 4 minutes on each side, using tongs to flip, rested for 6-7 minutes on a platter before cutting slices on a bias across the grain (skirt steaks are very thin, so just cutting straight down would have produced steak confetti).
As promised in Brown's recipe , the steak was still chewy - lots of connective tissue - but it tasted like the South Side of Heaven. The pan sear had produced a pepper 'crust', and it was still medium rare in the middle. For less than 5 bucks and 10 minutes worth of work, (and being willing to actually chew a bit), I had an outstanding piece of beef.
I also roasted some small red potatoes, some carrots and a couple of parsnips in the oven with olive oil, thyme, and kosher salt and those came out fine too. This took 40 minutes, though, so my timing needs work...and the dinner turned out not to be so quick. Still worth it, though.
Next time I may try actually marinating the steak, or pounding/tenderizing it a bit, but I was still really pleased with the results.
I give skirt steak 2 thumbs up.
Kosher salt, ground pepper (rubbed in by hand), a squirt of canola oil from a spray bottle on each side, and into an iron skillet that had spent 5 minutes on medium high heat getting warmed up. 4 minutes on each side, using tongs to flip, rested for 6-7 minutes on a platter before cutting slices on a bias across the grain (skirt steaks are very thin, so just cutting straight down would have produced steak confetti).
As promised in Brown's recipe , the steak was still chewy - lots of connective tissue - but it tasted like the South Side of Heaven. The pan sear had produced a pepper 'crust', and it was still medium rare in the middle. For less than 5 bucks and 10 minutes worth of work, (and being willing to actually chew a bit), I had an outstanding piece of beef.
I also roasted some small red potatoes, some carrots and a couple of parsnips in the oven with olive oil, thyme, and kosher salt and those came out fine too. This took 40 minutes, though, so my timing needs work...and the dinner turned out not to be so quick. Still worth it, though.
Next time I may try actually marinating the steak, or pounding/tenderizing it a bit, but I was still really pleased with the results.
I give skirt steak 2 thumbs up.