What a thing of beauty. And it's a dinner recipe. It's really easy to find yourself drowning in dessert recipes, and I had been waiting for any dinner recipe that did not include copious amounts of enticing bubbly golden cheese on top, and here this gem showed up. Awesome! My kids also love steak, so that's a bonus. The dogs do too, but no bonus for them.
The recipe is really simple - marinate the steak, cook it, serve with sauce. The marinade couldn't be easier, and you probably have the ingredients in your pantry already: olive oil, brown sugar, garlic, salt & pepper. Mix up, slather on, put in refrigerator however long you like. No problem - mix it all up in my trusty old pyrex measuring cup. The consistency of the marinade is like a paste of sugar and garlic, so it makes it easy to really cover the steak evenly. Moving on the phase 2: the chimichurri.
I've heard about chimichurri a million times; it seems to be rather popular on Top Chef lately. While the steak was marinating I made it, another super-easy recipe, extra easy if you have a food processor: fresh cilantro, parsley, oregano, garlic, olive oil, red wine vinegar, red pepper flakes, s&p. Whip it up, just like you're making pesto (people who make pesto will understand). Now, this recipe makes a lot of chimichurri - a little more than 8oz., but you can refrigerate it, or freeze it, and trust me when I say you can't eat that much. It packs a punch - you've got raw garlic and hot red pepper flakes, for starters. It's loaded with fresh cilantro, which couldn't make me happier; I LOVE cilantro. I did not use fresh oregano. I didn't want as much as was called for in the recipe, so I increased both the cilantro and parsley, and instead added some dried oregano (about 1/2 tbsp). I made the whole thing in my food processor, rinsed out the pyrex measuring cup, and poured it in there for the time being (and saved using another container).
I marinated the steak for about 3 hours, after which I took off the marinade (just scraped it off with a spoon) and put the steak on my broiler pan. While the steak broiled to a nice medium, flipping halfway through, I made some rice and broccoli; something kind of mild to counter-act the chimichurri.
Thirty minutes cooking time, and dinner is served! I will say that although a flank steak is a great cut for grilling and broiling, rather lean, but very juicy and a nice texture (also good for stir fry), the marinade really didn't impart much flavor. Now, you're going to say "well, you scraped it off, lady". Yes, I did. The recipe did not say whether or not to do that, but in my infinite wisdom, I decided to do that because it is usually not good to either grill or broil something that has that much sugar on it. It would be much too easy to for all that sugar, and the garlic, to burn before the meat was done. Why did I not use the scraped off marinade as a glaze to add right at the end a la bbq sauce? Because I think that's gross, it's been sitting all over raw meat and then you're going to put it on top of cooked? I'm not. Also, the chimichurri has a fair amount of raw garlic in it, and you really didn't need extra in the meal anywhere else. The chimichurri is the beautiful green color, with nice fresh herbs, and is so yummy. In the short time that it sat, the garlic really got stronger and so did the red pepper. Connor loved the smell of it and kept coming back just to sniff it, but of course had his steak with "blue ranch dip" a.k.a. bleu cheese dressing. It is an intense flavor for kids, unless they're used to that. I find in general, kids don't go for a big hit of garlic in any foods. And I also found that they really don't like the smell of the sauce that lingers with you while you're reading to them about 2 hours later. Do NOT have this while on a romantic date, or if you are hoping for any kind of romance later that day, or in the next couple of days. I also think mine should have been a little more substantial body-wise. I would have started with about half of the vinegar and oil that the recipe called for and gone from there, make the acid level what you like, and the oil to herb ratio as thick or thin as you want.
Verdict:
Would I make the steak and marinade again? Yes and No. I would use that cut of meat again, fo' sure. The marinade was superfluous - if you are serving chimichurri, there is absolutely no need for it - too much garlic, and I wouldn't use it without the chimichurri since it didn't really flavor the meat. Would I make chimichurri again? Hell ya. It's awesome, goes with anything, and keeps so you can make a bit and freeze if you like. I found some information here on what you can do with some extra sauce: "Five Ways to Use Chimichurri Sauce". I'm sure there's a lot of info if you just do a quick web search. I am thinking of using the rest of this one as a pizza sauce with the leftover steak and maybe some parm or something.
So I highly recommend the sauce and the cut of meat, but skip the marinade - no need. And you can read the post with the recipe link from the beginning of this post, which pretty much says the same, and enthusiastically extols the virtues of the fab sauce that you'll be sorry you didn't make.
But please invest in some mints. Your friends and family will thank you.
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