Anonymous wrote:No dutch oven or crock pot, unless you want your skirt steak to taste/look like a shoe sole. I used get a great pepper skirt steak at Les Hailles (smash some pepper, coat the steak, and quick fry in a buttered pan.
You can get an excellent sear on skirt steak using an enameled dutch oven, if you don't have a grill pan.
But I take it PP's main point is that you shouldn't stew or braise this meat, and I completely agree with that. Cook it over high heat until the outside is about to char and the inside is medium rare or medium.
Some serving options:
- Steakhouse salad: Serve the sliced steak over lettuce, onion (ideally fried onion), and blue cheese.
- Thai salad: Serve sliced over lettuce, carrots, green onion with a Thai-influenced vinaigrette.
- Fajitas. If you brown the steak in an enameled dutch oven, you can use the same pot to complete the meal. When I do this, I pre-cook the steak and peppers, move them temporarily to a bowl, sear the steak, then, leaving the heat high, return all of the ingredients back to the pot briefly to finish.
- Grilled, served with a chimichurri sauce. Goes well with roasted potatoes and a veggie.
- Steak frites. I like to make either a mustard or red win pan sauce with the fond (brown bits) from searing the steak. Shallots add a ton of flavor to the sauce.
If you want to cook it for longer than a quick grill, your best option is to pound the steak out slightly, cover it with filling, and roll and tie the steak. Then sear it in a dutch oven, cover, and cook the steak through. It won’t get too tough that way, particularly if the filling has some moisture.
Finally, if you’ve never worked with this cut of meat before, please know that
how you slice it is almost as important as how you cook it. The meat is much more tender if you cut it against the grain than if you cut it along the grain. It really does make a noticeable difference.