Grilled Skirt Steak with Salsa Verde

Well, if you couldn't tell from the 100+ degree weather nearly across all the states, it's still summer! That means there is still tons of time to get outside and GRILL! I found this fairly simple recipe in Food & Wine, and it turned out delicious. I just love sauces and this Salsa Verde is outstanding! You need to marinate the meat overnight, like any great grilled meat, so prepare ahead of time by getting the needed ingredients when you grocery shop! Doing this recipe and the Tomato Cilantro Marinated Chicken in the same week is a great idea! Fresh herbs in this recipe are a must!

Steak Marinade:
1/4 cup finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 tbs. finely chopped rosemary
2 tbs. finely chopped thyme
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

2 lbs. skirt steak
Salt and black pepper
Smoked Paprika (optional)

Salsa Verde:
1 packed cup parsley leaves
1 packed cup basil leaves
1 packed cup mint leaves
1/3 cup capers, drained
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 tbs Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
 

After chopping your parsley, rosemary and thyme and mincing your garlic for the marinade, mix them in a bowl with the olive oil. Then rub the mixture all over your steak and put it all in a gallon sized zip lock bag to marinate. You can refrigerate the bag for a minimum of 4 hours, but I prefer to prepare the night before and let it marinate overnight.

When you're ready to grill the next day, carefully remove all the herbs from the meat. You don't want to cook them, because they'll just burn and be hard pieces on your meat. They've done their job already, providing you with some tasty flavor to enhance the meat, but not overpower it. Add a little salt and pepper to the meat for further seasoning.

 

Since grilling doesn't take that long, it's best to make the Salsa Verde now, but fire up the grill to high heat. In a food processor, combine the parsley, basil, mint, capers, garlic, mustard and sugar and blend until it's a paste, should only take a few seconds. Then while the food processor is running, very slowly pour in the olive oil. You're making an emulsion, and if you add the oil too fast, you're not going to have great results! Doesn't this look tasty!!!

 With your grill on high heat now, it's time to get down to business. Depending on how rare or well done you like it, you might want to adjust your times. I would grill for  4 minutes on the first side and another 3 or 4 on the other side. If you like it really rare, like in my picture below, it's about 3 minutes on the first side and 2 on the other. We tossed them back on for a little longer after I took the picture, it was a little too rare for us. That's what practicing is for, and the more you practice.. the more tasty food you get to eat!

After you're done grilling the meat, let it rest on the cutting board for another 3 minutes. This allows the juices to be reabsorbed by the meat. They are tasty and you don't want till spilling all over your cutting board instead of flavoring your meat. Slice the meat into stripes by cutting across the grain. Skirt steak has very obvious lines running in one direction through the meat, those are the grains. Cutting across them, makes each bite of meat much more tender.

Grilled steak is perfect with some grilled vegetables. Squash and zucchini are two of my faves!
Hope you enjoy!