Have you joined the fans clamoring for skirt steak? It’s relatively inexpensive, as steak goes, but it does require careful grilling and it needs to be sliced thin as it’s a more-chewy cut of meat.
My favorite steak is ribeye. That’s no secret if you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time. I haven’t had a steak for awhile – once in a blue moon I do make one for myself – and it’s very satisfying, I must admit. When my DH was alive, we’d have a steak every 2-4 weeks, for sure. Dave love-loved them. And he had perfected the cooking of them on the outdoor grill. My poor barbecue doesn’t get much of a workout with just me these days. We’ve had a really hot and muggy summer here in SoCal. Hotter earlier than usual, and more muggy than usual. So I don’t tend to go outdoors in the early evening as it’s just too uncomfortable. So this recipe would fit perfectly into that routine since it can be done on an indoor grill.
This skirt steak (also called flap meat in some grocery stores – it’s a boneless portion of the diaphragm muscle attached to the 6th through 12th ribs on the underside of the short plate) does need to be marinated for at least 8 hours, or overnight if you can make the time to do it. That helps tenderize the rather chewy cut of meat. And in case you’ve never done a skirt steak, when you buy it, it’s a big, long piece of meat, relatively thin and very grainy when you look at it. Do cut it up into manageable pieces before marinating and then grilling them.
This marinade is heavy in the oil component. It needs it here, although when you’re done, that marinade gets thrown out anyway. Combine the ingredients in a plastic Ziploc bag, and turn the meat a few times to coat everything well. Then seal it up and stick it in the frig until later.
Make the garlic yogurt sauce – it’s easy to do – Phillis Carey (this came from a class with her) prefers regular yogurt, not Greek, but I think I’d use Greek. She said you could, it’s just that the sauce will be much thicker. Do make it several hours ahead too, so the garlic and lemon juice will mix and flavor all the yogurt. Chill it until you’re ready to serve it – can be made the day before if you want.
INDOOR GRILLING:
Use your indoor grill pan and place a piece of heavy-duty foil on top. Oil it and grill as usual. Easy cleanup.
Now, the grilling. I was so impressed – Phillis discovered that you can save all the cleanup of an indoor grill by covering the top with foil – you just lay the foil on top – don’t press it in/on it. Spray or brush the foil with some of the oil from the marinade – try to get just the oil, not the lemon juice part. Or, barring that, just spray with olive oil spray. Pick up the meat pieces with tongs and just let them drain for 5-10 seconds (over the open bag) then place on the pre-heated grill. You’ll be so surprised – the meat gets grill marks just as if it’s right on the pan itself. This meat, however, only wants to be grilled for 3-5 minutes per side. The meat shrinks up something fierce – you might think that 2-3 pounds of skirt steak would feed 10 people, but NO, it shrinks a lot. In case you don’t know, skirt steak is quite fatty – you can’t SEE the fat very much – but enter the meat into any nutrition info and you’ll find that it’s very fatty. Sad to say . . . but it’s full of flavor. More flavor than regular steaks, it’s true.
Let the meat sit, tented with foil, for about 5 minutes once you’ve taken it off the grill then use tongs and a sharp knife and cut it across the grain into thin slices. Pile it onto a heated platter and serve with some of the garlic yogurt sauce drizzled over it, and serve the remaining in a bowl to pass at the table. Or, as I suggested a few days ago, serve this steak with the BLT Salad with Grilled Corn and Buttermilk Parm Dressing.
What’s GOOD: the flavor, first of all. Easy to do, easy marinade, easy grilling – just watch it carefully and don’t overcook it – served medium-rare at most (cooking it further may make the meat more tough).
What’s NOT: really nothing except watching the grilling carefully.
printer-friendly PDF and MasterCook 15/16 file (click link to open recipe)
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Greek-Marinated Skirt Steak with Garlic Yogurt Sauce
Recipe By: Cooking class, Phillis Carey, 2018
Serving Size: 6
2 1/2 pounds skirt steak
2 tablespoons Italian parsley — chopped (garnish)
MARINADE:
1 cup olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
3 cloves garlic — minced
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons dried oregano
2 teaspoons dried parsley
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
YOGURT SAUCE:
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup plain yogurt — full fat (may use Greek, but it will be thick)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1. STEAK: Combine olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, mustard, herbs, salt and pepper in a large Ziploc bag. Mix well, then add the skirt steak(s), turning to coat well. Refrigerate at least 8 hours or overnight.
2. SAUCE: mash the garlic with the salt into a paste. Stir the garlic into the yogurt along with lemon juice.Cover and refrigerate up to one day ahead.
3. Preheat grill. If using an indoor grill, place a piece of heavy-duty almuminum foil on top of the grill and oil it. Remove steak from refrigerator about 45 minutes before cooking time. Using tongs, remove steak from marinade and let it drain for 10-15 seconds (over the bag), then place on grill for 3-5 minutes per side for medium rare (depends on the thickness of the meat), then let meat rest on a cutting board, tented with foil, for 5 minutes before slicing thinly on the diagonal (across the grain). Mound meat on a heated platter, drizzle with some of the yogurt sauce, sprinkle with parsley and serve remaining sauce on the table.
Per Serving (assumes you’re consuming all the marinade, which you don’t): 694 Calories; 57g Fat (74.6% calories from fat); 39g Protein; 5g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 102mg Cholesterol; 727mg Sodium.
hddonna
said on September 5th, 2018:
Now I know with that skirt steak I came across in the freezer the other day! And that BLT salad sounded good, too–sounds like a menu.
Great – you’ll have to tell me how they went together. It sounded like a good combo to me! . . . carolyn t
Toffeeapple
said on September 7th, 2018:
If the meat is the same cut as we have here, I am surprised that it has to be marinated because our famous Cornish pasties are made with it, simply sliced small and put into the pastry with the potatoes and swede (rutabaga to you!) then baked. Perhaps it is a different cut.
I’m not sure if it’s the same cut or not, but I think it was marinated to make it just a bit more tender when cooked, but also to give it additional flavor. But for sure the marinade had more oil in it to help protect the meat from overcooking on the grill. . . carolyn t
hddonna
said on September 12th, 2018:
Did this last night, and it was so delicious! Whether the marinade did anything towards tenderizing the meat is debatable, as it was quite chewy, but it added tons of flavor, and the guys really liked it. I used half the recipe, and halved the amount of oil in that: I always shy away from using great quantities of olive oil because of the expense, and this amount was plenty, both for flavor and for preventing sticking. I’ve been reading a lot lately about marinating being a waste of time (Christopher Kimball, Kenji Lopez-Alt, Dan Souza) because any flavor penetrates only a little way into the meat. But with a thin cut, that was plenty. It was extremely flavorful! They suggest a dry rub, but the tartness of the lemon juice would have been missed if only the dry spices were used. It was difficult to slice the meat any thinner than in your picture, but I have some left over, and I intend to shave that as thin as I can. That should make a difference in the chewiness. I think this marinade would be good on any cut. For a family meal, I often marinated a large sirloin stead and slice it to serve. Might substituted this marinade next time for a change. I think it would be great on chicken as well.
I did use Greek yogurt, as that is what I keep on hand. I thinned it some with water, but after adding three or four tablespoons, it was still quite thick, and the flavor balance was starting to go off–it needed more salt and lemon juice. I’d still use the Greek, though. It worked fine.
Am so glad you liked it. I think skirt steak is very flavorful to begin with but this marinade did add a lot more oomph to it. . . carolyn t
hddonna
said on September 17th, 2018:
Just wanted to let you know that I used this marinade for grilled chicken yesterday, and it was great. I used a full recipe of the marinade, and this time I used the full cup of oil, but I made it half olive and half canola. I marinated four chicken halves. There was only time to give it a couple of hours, but they were still very flavorful. A few more hours wouldn’t hurt, though.
I had some of the yogurt sauce left over and used it as a dressing for a Greek cucumber salad. It already had several of the ingredients called for in the salad recipe, so I just added dill and feta cheese and mixed it with cucumbers, red bell pepper, and red onion. A nice change from my usual cucumber recipes. With baked acorn squash (made in the toaster oven), it made for a lovely Sunday supper with minimal kitchen mess.
So good to know, Donna. Really, most marinades likely work with any kind of meat, although rosemary works well with lamb. . . carolyn t