You may recognize 8-65: Sizzling Skirt Steaks as basically fajitas, one of the standard Mexican restaurant menu features. If you’re looking for something different on taco night, consider this dish. This can even be modified for different types of proteins, or even add in a few more veggies or a meat substitute and go meatless.
Flank or skirt steak is taken from the underside of the cow, and is tougher than most other cuts of meat. Therefore, marinating it (especially with some acid) breaks down some of those fibers and gives you a more tender piece when it’s cooked. Cooking fast/hot works well with this type of cut–low and slow will give you tough and rubbery.
Timing is everything with this recipe–the TIPS section gives a few hints on how to manage it effectively.
Ingredients. Flank steak was part of a larger Costco package that was split up and frozen. Type of onion to use isn’t specified, so I went with red–white or yellow would work well too.
Marinating meat–plastic bags work better for this than the suggested glass pan (in my opinion) because you can more effectively move around the meat as it marinates. This ensures all parts get evenly coated and saturated. Plus, it takes up MUCH less space.
After 24 hours or so of marinating. Mine is still all one piece, rather than the 4 steaks suggested–I suppose I could have cut them first, but this was easier.
Slicing the onion into strips–that seems appropriate li to be paired with strips of meat.
I cut them into the prescribed 4 pieces after they were marinated for easier handling while working with the broiler.
Slicing the quickly-broiled steaks. That looks pretty rare in the middle to me.
Meat and onions ready to be finished in the skillet.
I’m not making this table-ready, since honestly it’s not going to be eaten at a table. Instead, it’s going to be more of a make-your-own-fajita-wrap buffet/line kind of situation, so I’m making it ready for that.
The rest of the fajita wrap options.
Close-up of the meat and onions in the skillet. It’s not full-on sizzling, but it was pretty hot and delicious.
With all the fixings. Like I said, consider this an alternative to taco night sometime.
Grade: A
