The Food Zone – Marinated Grilled Flank Steak

Marinated Grilled Flank Steak For Tex-Mex

A flank steak probably isn’t as well known as a ribeye, filet mignon, New York strip, or Cheyenne t-bone.

Okay, I made the last one up. Anyway, flank is not that expensive and is the perfect meat to grill for fajitas and tacos, Korean bulgogi or even a stir fry. Word to the wise: flank steak can be tough because of all the muscle fibers so there are two rules to follow:

First, make sure you marinate the meat at least a couple of hours. Second, make sure you cut the meat perpendicular to the grain. It’s easy to tell because those muscle fibers are in lines and go straight across the meat. Just cut perpendicular to that, roughly ¼ inch size strips.

You can make all types of marinades based on what you want. For bulgogi, soy sauce, honey, minced garlic and sugar is pretty much all we use.

Here’s a marinade for grill flank steak great for fajitas or tacos:

4-6 pound flank steak

½ cup soy sauce

⅓ cup honey

⅓ cup spicy mustard

Two tablespoons of minced garlic

⅓ cup olive oil

2 tablespoons minced garlic.

3 tablespoons taco/fajita seasoning or cayenne pepper for more heat.

2 chopped scallions/green onions.

So here’s the hard part: Mix all the ingredients – except the steak – in a large bowl.

Next, put the steak in the bowl and saturate it in the marinade. We usually put the steak in a large plastic storage bag along with all the marinade, letting it gel for a couple of hours or so.

This is best grilled on a hot grill, but a hot cast iron skillet will work just as well. Just make sure it’s high heat, this is not a meat you want to slow cook. Every grill is different so I’m not going to give you how many minutes a side. What you want is medium rare and pull the steak off around 130 degrees. Make sure and let the meat rest for 10 minutes or so to get all the juices back where they belong.

Then, slice perpendicular to the grain in about ¼-strips and enjoy.

(John A. Winters is publisher of The Paper. You can usually find him, the Little Black Dress and the SONS of Thunder hanging out in the kitchen or by a fire pit.)