Flank Steak: Recipe with Pictures
This was one of mom's (Peg's) specialities while I was growing up.
She always used the oven to broil the steak, but I'm a griller.
It's cleaner, easier, and doesn't get smoke all over the house.
If you make this, make sure you make enough -- a 1-pound steak
will be good for about three people, if they are hungry.
Ingredients
- Flank steak.
- Garlic, fresh or ground
- Ginger, preferably fresh or in a paste, or powdered -- I found that huge
jar of Ginger Paste pictured below at an Indian grocery store -- it's a total
score, since chopping fresh ginger is a pain.
- Ground pepper
- Soy sauce
- Red wine, rice wine, or sherry
- Oregano
- Salt
The Ingredients.
Directions
First, use a fork and poke lots of holes through the steak, both sides -- about
30-50 pokes. Then, on each side of the steak, first pour a few tablespoons of
soy sauce and wine on top, then put on the spices -- garlic, ginger, pepper,
oregano, salt (and if you don't have wine, put a teaspoon or two of sugar). Go
light on the salt, but heavy on everything else. The above picture shows the
steak after this step. Put it in the fridge for 2 to 36 hours. Obviously,
the longer the bettter.
Fire up the grill, and get the grill as close to the coals as possible. Grill
to your liking -- for a good medium rare, do 5 minutes per side. Remove and
let it sit for a few minutes (so that the juices can redistribute throughout
the meat). Then slice into 1/4-inch slices across the
grain. Enjoy.
If you don't use a grill, use the oven broiler -- again, get the steak close
to the broiling element. It will likely smoke up the kitchen.
The grill is ready for the steak.
Side one grilling.
Side two grilling.
The steak rests.
To slice "against the grain", note that on the top of the steak, you can
see parallel lines going from left to right. That is "the grain." Slice
perpendicularly to "the grain."