Flank steak: Going against the grain, beautifully

Slow marinating [in a mix of coriander, cumin, cinnamon, fresh ginger and garlic] and quick grilling make flavorful flank steak moist, tender and even bigger flavored. Recipe below.

Beef. It’s what’s for dinner.” When actor Robert Mitchum so beautifully uttered those words in a TV commercial voiceover, backed by Aaron Copland’s always stirring “Rodeo,” this is the kind of meal he was talking about.

As much as I talk about the blank canvas a chicken breast presents cooks or the underlying sweetness of a pork chop, there is something so satisfyingly rich and meaty about a good piece of beef well prepared.

And beef doesn’t get much more flavorful or meaty than flank steak. Also called London Broil or Jiffy Steak, this lean, flat cut is particularly known for its robust beefy flavor. With the right cooking and serving, it can be tender and moist too. Flank steak lends itself beautifully to marinating and then quickly grilling, broiling or pan searing. Don’t overcook it, though—that’s a sure way to make it chewy and tough.

I think it’s this reputation for potential toughness that unfairly puts a number of cooks off this delicious cut of meat, me included. Not anymore. Turns out there’s no voodoo to cooking juicy, tender flank steak—just two simple steps. I’ve already given you the first above: Don’t overcook it. Medium rare is perfect.

The second step is just as simple: Carve it across the grain after you cook it. According to Ask The Meat Man, it’s the only steak containing an entire large muscle. And unlike most other steaks, which butchers slice across the muscle fibers, flank steak fibers run the full length of the steak. You can see the fibers running across the tops of the slices in the photo above. So when you’re ready to serve the cooked steak, slice it into thin strips, cutting across the grain. Most sources suggest angling the knife blade at 45 degrees.

I can’t even remember now what suddenly put flank steak on my radar, but the more I read, the more I found recipes recommending marinating it, usually in some kind of spice rub. Not only does marinating it add to the already robust taste, it helps tenderize it. Some recipes call for a mere hour of marinating, but most said longer. This shouldn’t be a deal breaker; it just means you can’t do flank steak spur of the moment.

As usual, my spice rub marinade was the result of combining a couple of different recipes and then tinkering with them. In a somewhat unusual move for me, I resisted adding cayenne pepper or any other heat sources I frequently turn to. The spice rub mix smelled promising; my only concern was the meat itself. I needn’t have worried. The result was a delicious, complex complement to the rich beef flavor without any fire—and steak that was wonderfully tender. Continue reading “Flank steak: Going against the grain, beautifully” →

Barbecued chicken, ’Bama style

Mayonnaise, cider vinegar and horseradish come together in the surprisingly subtle, tangy Alabama White Sauce first created by Big Bob Gibson in 1925. It adds great flavor to pork, beef or—as you’ll see here—grilled chicken. Recipes below.

SEEMS I’M ALWAYS QUOTING COMEDIAN STEVEN WRIGHT’S LINE, “It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to paint it.” Recently we were at our friends Allen and Sharon’s house for a barbecue. When I asked about the origin of the promising-smelling Alabama White Sauce Allen was slathering on the chicken, he said it was from Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q, a fixture in Decatur, Alabama, since 1925. We’ve not only been to Big Bob’s, Marion has an oversized T-shirt from there that she sometimes uses as a sleep shirt! Continue reading “Barbecued chicken, ’Bama style” →

Grilled sausages by the book, er, magazine

The juices of Italian sausages flavor red bell peppers and onions when they’re all cooked together on the grill. Recipes below.

I said last week that I like cookbooks with lots of photos. Let me amplify that statement: I like cookbooks with lots of color photos. Printed on slick paper to bring out every nuance—flecks of herbs, the sheen of cooking juices on a roast, the trail of a bead of condensation on a chilled wine glass. So imagine how less than interested I was in a cooking magazine that features line drawings and black and white photos on non-glossy paper.

I know, I know. Cook’s Illustrated is one of the best cooking publications out there. They’re America’s Test Kitchen—it says so right there on the cover. They don’t just cook something a time or two and call it close enough for government work. They cook it again and again and again—I’ve heard “a hundred times or more” bandied about—until they get it exactly right. Food bloggers everywhere rave about it.

But there’s just something so Highlights for Children earnest about its look to me that I’ve never been able to get past. Visually, it’s the sensible shoes of food magazines for me, singularly uninviting.

Still, when our neighbors Tom and Michael raved about it over dinner recently, I thought it was high time I got over myself and check it out. What I found, of course, was a wonderful new [to me, at least] resource. Picking up the current edition shown here, in addition to a recipe for Better Grilled Sausages with Onions and a couple of variations on the theme that led to my own variation above, I found secrets for great grilled chicken, tips for keeping produce fresher longer, an exhaustive comparison of silicone spatulas, a baker’s dozen of quick tips and a whole lot more. All packed into 52 pages refreshingly bereft of restaurant reviews, travel articles and other distractions that crowd the pages of more and more supposed cooking magazines. Also bereft of advertising. Since that’s what I do for a living, I was somewhat ambivalent about that.

But what I really liked about my first issue of Cook’s Illustrated is that they don’t only tell you how to cook something, they tell you why certain steps and techniques work. And for that matter, why some don’t. So you don’t just learn to cook a dish, you learn techniques and tips you can use elsewhere.

Of course even though the title for this post says by the book, I had to tamper with the recipe. No big changes, mainly just treating the red bell pepper differently to integrate it more into the dish. If you want to see the thoroughly tested version of the recipe, pick up the magazine. Continue reading “Grilled sausages by the book, er, magazine” →

Bawdy chicken: Spicy Grilled Chicken Paillards

Cumin and paprika add plenty of flavor to Spicy Grilled Chicken Paillards, but not much heat, as do orange juice, lemon juice, honey, cinnamon and red pepper flakes to the sauce. Recipes below.

MARION HAS ACCUSED ME IN THE PAST of being a culinary Francophile. And I’m the first to admit she’s right. Casting about for some grilling ideas for this week’s post, I came across a chicken recipe that called for chicken breasts sliced or lightly pounded into flattened pieces. If they’d used the modern term for this thin cut of meat, cutlet, I probably wouldn’t have given it a second glance. But no, they used the older French term, paillard (pronounced pah-YAHR), apparently named for a late 19th century Parisian restaurateur. Okay, I was interested. Continue reading “Bawdy chicken: Spicy Grilled Chicken Paillards” →

To grill or not to grill: Rosemary Pork Chops

Grilled asparagus and grilled zucchini make perfect sides for grilled pork chops marinated in red wine, rosemary and garlic. Recipes below.

I don’t grill a lot. I’ve already given my reasons for being less than enthusiastic about this form of cooking that borders on obsession for many home cooks, both here [in which I sang the praises of a good pan and a hot stove] and here [where I did haul out the grill and produced some juicy, tender Hoisin Chicken].

But as warm weather approaches each year, I have moments of viewing my lack of interest in grilling as a culinary personality defect, a flaw to be corrected. So this past weekend, the grill came out and I produced not just one dish, but three. For the main course, I made Pork Chops with Rosemary. These chops can also be made with the aforementioned good pan and hot stove; see Kitchen Notes. For sides, I made Grilled Asparagus and Grilled Zucchini.

The weather was less than promising as I started prepping in the kitchen, yet another reason I’m not overly excited about grilling. My track record in this regard is not what you’d call stellar. In fact, if you’re ever experiencing severe drought where you live, invite me over to cook out. The bluest of skies will cloud up and produce a deluge just about the time I start firing up the charcoal. Miraculously, though, on this most unsettled of weekends with storms popping up everywhere and a tornado ripping through the far southern suburbs, it rained before and after I cooked, but not a drop fell during. Continue reading “To grill or not to grill: Rosemary Pork Chops” →

Grilling and lessons learned: Grilled Hoisin Chicken Thighs

A mix of Asian seasonings and indirect grilling combine to create flavorful, tender Grilled Hoisin Chicken Thighs. Recipe below.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Last week I wrote my little anti-grilling manifesto, and here I am doing a grilling post this week. It’s not that I don’t like grilling or the wonderfully smokey taste of something done right on the grill—it’s that I don’t like not being in control, not feeling like I know what I’m doing. Continue reading “Grilling and lessons learned: Grilled Hoisin Chicken Thighs” →