- 1 pound to 1 ½ pound Grass Fed Flank, Skirt or other steak
Marinade:
- 4 garlic cloves, finely minced
- ½ c. red wine vinegar
- 3 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons honey
- ½ cup olive oil
Combine garlic, vinegar, soy sauce and honey. Whisk in the olive oil in a small, steady stream to emulsify the mixture. Place steak in small pan or bowl and pour mixture over to marinate the steak at least one hour or overnight. I put mine in a Ziploc bag and toss it a couple of times and leave it overnight, tossing again in the a.m. Before grilling, take out steak and let sit 30 minutes to get to room temperature. Grill steak on high heat to get good grill marks — putting steak on grill at 10 o’clock and turning after 2 minutes to 2 o’clock. After 2 minutes at 2 o’clock, flip steak and do the same again on other side. Move steak to medium heat on grill and finish to desired doneness or you can finish in 350 degree oven until desired doneness. Do not overcook. Steak is best if rare, especially if grass fed steak. Rest for 10 minutes before cutting — against the grain if flank or skirt steak — in thin ½ inch slices. Delicious served with Chimichurri Sauce and also fabulous for steak sandwiches with horseradish mayo and pickled red onions on top.
When I asked my granddaughter, Ava Caroline, what she wanted for her 14th birthday she replied, “a big steak”. Well the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it? It was with great delight that I took her and Helen to the best steak place in Atlanta, Kevin Rathbun’s in the old 4th Ward. We ordered the Dry Aged Steak for 3 with Black Truffle Butter. This skinny teenager ate like she was carbo-loading for a marathon – plenty of rolls, salad, scalloped gruyere potatoes and probably a pound of steak – with room for dessert! I recently grilled a flank steak for the 2017 Super Bowl party — still in grief therapy over the Falcon loss — and Ava Caroline loved it with the chimichurri sauce – just as good as Rathbun’s!
Argentine Chimichurri Sauce Serves 6
2 cups packed fresh Italian parsley leaves
4 medium garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
¼ cup packed fresh oregano leaves (or 4 t. dried oregano)
¼ cup red wine vinegar
½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
Place parsley, garlic, oregano, vinegar, red pepper flakes salt and pepper (to taste) in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a blade attachment. Process until finely chopped, stopping and scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed, about 1 minute total. With the motor running, add oil in a steady stream. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and pulse a few times to combine. Transfer sauce to an airtight container and refrigerate at least 2 hours or up to 1 day to allow the flavors to meld. Before serving, stir and season with salt and pepper as needed. The chimichurri will keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.
Chimichurri Mayonnaise:
Use 1:1 good mayonnaise to chimichurri sauce. Great on steak sandwiches and as a dip for veggies!
Growing cows on pasture gives a certain earthiness to the flavor of the beef – not off putting, just different . There’s less fat and a difference in the fat. Grass is grown in soil which needs water, oxygen, decomposing organic matter , cow poop, pee and sunshine to give a lot of nutrients (protein) into the grass — which brings it into the cow. Cows were designed to graze on grass, not grain. If fed grain, cows can become sick if that’s all they eat. That’s why the large beef feedlots give antibiotics to the cows so they can withstand the unnatural side effect of acid buildup in their rumens from the grain. That’s one of the reasons grass fed beef is being recognized as a great nutrient source for your diet. There are no antibiotics used because only healthy, sunshine-soaked grass is the primary food source. Though Australians might dispute this, the masters of grass fed beef are the Argentineans. They have learned to rotationally graze and grow great grass without chemicals producing well-fattened, healthy beef. They serve their grilled beef with chimichurri sauce. This sauce enhances the flavors of the grass fed beef in the tastiest of ways. In our organic garden I grow a lot of parsley because it’s great for garnishing food, in soups, salads, and now I use it in this amazing sauce. Hope you will try this with your grass fed beef. It’s a winner and also good with empanadas.