When I was growing up my Mom made the best Flank Steak. She would lay the steak flat in a pyrex baking dish and pour a mixture of red wine, olive oil, garlic, dried rosemary and salt and pepper over it, cover it and put it in the fridge. There it would rest for a day or two, luxuriating in its spa treatment until the evening when it was taken out and broiled in the oven until it was just crispy on the edges and still pink in the middle. When it was done it was allowed to rest on the cutting board and then sliced as thinly as possible. It was so delicious I could never stop eating it and if I had been allowed I would have consumed the entire steak single handedly. I wasn't the only one who thought it was fabulous either - one day our dog Klute put her front legs up on the counter and delicately pulled out the leftover meat from between two sheets of wax paper and ran out of the house with her delicious treasure - my Mom chasing her belatedly with a broom.
It was quite a revelation to me to discover as a young adult that the recipe had come from my father's mother. In her day she had made the steak with Garlic Powder instead of fresh garlic, but that notwithstanding, she had been the author of this delicacy.
Now I've made it myself, just the way my Mom used to do it, many many times. But times have changed and I wanted to see if I could improve on the recipe with some of my new fangled ideas. For example, who does a wet marinade anymore? I mean really. It's all dry rubs, dry aging, dry everything. So couldn't I do this flank steak with a dry method and get better result.
So I tried. First of all, steak isn't that great for you. Sorry to break the news. So I got the only kind that isn't supposed to be so bad for you - a grass fed steak all the way from New Zealand. Don't we have grass here in the States? Sorry, getting off topic. Okay, I brought home my lovely flank steak, rinsed it off, patted it dry and lay it out on a rack inside a roasting pan. Then I ground Sea Salt and Pepper very liberally over it's surface. I clipped some fresh rosemary sprigs off my plant by my sink and chopped it up coarsely and sprinkled that across the steak. Then I peeled some fresh garlic and sliced it very thin and lay these thin slivers of garlic carefully over the surface of the steak. Then I flipped the steak over and did the same on the other side. I couldn't figure out anyway to use red wine in my dry method and I didn't use olive oil. I put it in my fridge uncovered and left it there overnight. By the time I took it out to let it come to room temperature before broiling it at least 24 hours had passed. It looked dry and bright red.
I broiled it for 5 minutes a side - which was way too long by the way. Three or four minutes would have been better. Despite the fact that it was well done, the dry aging with salt had kept the meat incredibly tender - it wasn't tough at all. The dry aging really changes the texture of the meat - it seemed closer to corned beef or even pot roast in texture than flank steak.
So how did my "New Fangled" method measure up? It was good, but not as good as my Mom's. I like the flavors that the wine and oil give to the meat in the liquid marinade. The steak had a salty peppery crust that was quite tasty and it was tender if not that moist (due to my overcooking it slightly).
I think the next episode of My Grandmother's Steak will need to try making a paste out of red wine, olive oil, garlic and rosemary and see how that works. Unfortunately, it may be a few weeks before I can do that since I'm not allowed to eat steak that often.
Tune in next time for the continuing saga...
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