Flank is one of my favorites to grill when I have folks over for boxing, so when I was putting in a big exotic meat order, I wanted to throw one in the order. They were out of flank, and the people there recommended that I go with skirt, suggesting a little more marinade time on a recipe they had on the site for flank.
I'd never cooked a skirt steak, beef or otherwise, and I didn't find it in the index of The complete meat cookbook, and my copy of all about meat was on loan.
So I winged it.
I made a marinade with balsamic, olive oil, frank's red hot, and a little cumin.
I then spent a good half hour cleaning up the skirt steaks. There was a lot of membrane on them that was reminiscent of what you pull off of ribs, except it was even harder to pull off intact. There were also some pockets of hard fat that needed to be snipped off. a bit of a pain, but there are worse things to do than handle meat.
The strips were long, so I cut them into thirds of 5-6". They marinated in a ziploc for 2 hours, the last hour of which was at room temp.
I fired up the kettle with a full chimney, and planned to do it three minutes to a side, but that actually was a bit too much time, and the pieces in the middle came out medium. Those slightly off center to the hot spot were medium rare.
After the rest, I cut off the end and popped it into my mouth. Chewy. So I sliced the rest of it very thin.
As it turns out, I'd cut off the thinnest part of one of the most cooked steaks, so the chewiness wasn't a big problem with the majority of the meat.
The biggest problem was that the balsamic flavor was a bit overwhelming. The bison still came through, but it was too much balsamic flavor.
If I did it again, I'd swap out balsamic for red wine vinegar or think about a different approach to the marinade alltogether.
Still, not bad for a first attempt, and having only ever cooked bison rib eye or a bison and beef burger. I'd probably go back to flank if they have it the next time I order, but I certainly wouldn't mind tackling skirt again.
I'd never cooked a skirt steak, beef or otherwise, and I didn't find it in the index of The complete meat cookbook, and my copy of all about meat was on loan.
So I winged it.
I made a marinade with balsamic, olive oil, frank's red hot, and a little cumin.
I then spent a good half hour cleaning up the skirt steaks. There was a lot of membrane on them that was reminiscent of what you pull off of ribs, except it was even harder to pull off intact. There were also some pockets of hard fat that needed to be snipped off. a bit of a pain, but there are worse things to do than handle meat.
The strips were long, so I cut them into thirds of 5-6". They marinated in a ziploc for 2 hours, the last hour of which was at room temp.
I fired up the kettle with a full chimney, and planned to do it three minutes to a side, but that actually was a bit too much time, and the pieces in the middle came out medium. Those slightly off center to the hot spot were medium rare.
After the rest, I cut off the end and popped it into my mouth. Chewy. So I sliced the rest of it very thin.
As it turns out, I'd cut off the thinnest part of one of the most cooked steaks, so the chewiness wasn't a big problem with the majority of the meat.
The biggest problem was that the balsamic flavor was a bit overwhelming. The bison still came through, but it was too much balsamic flavor.
If I did it again, I'd swap out balsamic for red wine vinegar or think about a different approach to the marinade alltogether.
Still, not bad for a first attempt, and having only ever cooked bison rib eye or a bison and beef burger. I'd probably go back to flank if they have it the next time I order, but I certainly wouldn't mind tackling skirt again.
