These days, we have two main steak preparation preferences. The first is to combine the two in a glaze, as we do in our Grilled Ribeye with Soy Butter Glaze.
The second is an Argentinian take on a classic: grilled skirt steak with a tangy, garlicky, and slightly spicy chimichurri sauce.
First, a disclaimer before I wax lyrical about meat and exquisite Argentinean condiments: this is not what some may consider a “genuine” dish. Particularly, we leave the red wine vinegar out of our chimichurri so that the underlying flavors of parsley, garlic, and chili flakes may really come to the fore. It also broadens its usefulness as a condiment.
The amount of chimichurri you can expect to get out of this recipe is roughly 1 cup. You may drizzle it over your grilled skirt steak, use it as a dipping oil for bread before supper, or even use it in place of regular garlic and oil to give flavor to your sautéed vegetables. This is merely a Chinese family of professional eaters’ version of your grandmother’s 50-year-old recipe for chimichurri, so if you’re a gaucho in Argentina right now, taking a break from herding your cows, you can relax. However, if you prefer a tangier chimichurri, vinegar can be substituted.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, we strongly recommend trying chimichurri if you normally eat your skirt steak without any kind of seasoning. Chimichurri would be our best bet if steak could find a companion, if not a lifelong love. Put down the A1, Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, or any other flavor enhancer you’re using, and MAKE THIS CHIMICHURRI.
We have no doubt that you will never look back on this decision as anything other than the best thing that could have happened to you.
Ingredients:
- Skirt steak
- 1 bunch of parsley
- 1 bulb of garlic
- 2/3 cup of neutral oil
- 3 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
- 2-3 tablespoons of fresh oregano minced
- 1 1/2 teaspoons of crushed red pepper flakes
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- 1/8 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper
- juice of half a lime
Instructions:
- Take the leaves from your bunch of parsley and mince them. In order to make minced garlic, peel all of the cloves. Garlic cloves should be peeled and minced finely. It’s up to you whether you want to use a fancy gadget like a food processor or garlic press or stick with the tried and true knife and chopping board.
- Whisk together the parsley, oregano, red wine vinegar, garlic, oil, red pepper flakes, salt, black pepper, and lime juice in a small bowl. Blend well by stirring.
- Start preheating the grill. Put some salt and pepper on that meat. Place the steaks on the grill when the grill is very hot (the temperature should be between 500 and 600 degrees Fahrenheit if you have a thermometer). Due to the tenderness of skirt steaks, this preparation time is minimal. Do not turn off the grill, and stay nearby!
- Turn the steaks after about a minute so that both sides may obtain nice grill marks. After another minute, give the steak a flip and let it cook for another minute before flipping it and giving it yet another minute to finish cooking. After a secure crisscross pattern has been created, you can begin to move about a little more irregularly. These directions are for a medium-rare steak, which is the way we recommend eating a steak. Cook it longer or shorter to achieve the desired degree of doneness.
- After 10 minutes of resting time, remove the steak from the oven. Stop yourself from slicing into it until then. Slice across the grain to make thin steaks, or serve whole with chimichurri.