This is a recipe I created just a couple of weeks ago. I saw a beautiful Angus beef flank steak on sale, and wanted to find something to do with it. I came up with this idea of stuffing it. Amusingly, the day after it, a recipe appeared in the New York Times food section for a stuffed flank steak. But there's really nothing common between the two except the name.
The basic idea behind this is that flank steak has a terrific flavor, but it can be a bit tough. So I wanted to do something to it that would make it tender, while taking advantage of that terrific flavor. The idea I came up with was to flatten it out by butterflying and pounding with a tenderizer, and to marinate it with some wine. After doing that, I had a very large, very thin piece of steak. So I wanted to roll it up - and if you're rolling, you've got a great chance to put something between the layers of the roll. I used a bit of bacon in the recipe - it's important not to give in to temptation and use more. Bacon has a very strong flavor, and you want to complement the flavor of the flank steak, not overwhelm it.
Ingredients
- 1 flank steak (about 2lbs)
- 1 cup dry red wine
- Salt to taste - approximately two teaspoons.
- Two large portabello mushrooms
- 1 large red bell pepper
- 6 strips bacon
- 1/2 cup toasted bread crumbs
- 1/4 cup parmesan cheese
- Olive oil
- 2 large cloves garlic
- Black pepper
Instructions
- Start by butterflying the flank steak. This isn't hard, but you need a really sharp knife. Lay the steak flat. Looking down the long axis of the steak, you start in the center, and make a vertical cut about half-way through the steak. Then on each side, parallel to the cutting board, cut from the bottom of that vertical cut towards the edge of the steak until you can fold it over. You should end up with a large flat steak, twice as wide as what you started with.
- Make the marinade by chopping two large cloves of garlic, and mixing that with a teaspoon of salt, some olive oil, and the red wine.
- Pour the marinade over the steak, and marinate overnight.
- Lay out the steak flat on a large cutting board, pat dry, and pound it out with a meat tenderizer. Don't overdo it, but pound until the thickness is nice and uniform.
- Cook the bacon.
- Lay the strips of bacon out on the flattened steak.
- Roast the red pepper until the skin is charred. Then rub off the char, and slice the pepper into thin strips. Arrange the strips uniformly over the bacon on the flattened steak.
- Chop the mushrooms coarsely, and cook them in olive oil until they release their water. Salt to taste.
- Mix the cooked mushrooms with the bread crumbs and the parmesan cheese. Add olive oil until the mixture starts to stick together.
- Spread the mushroom and bread crumb mixture on top of the flattened steak.
- Carefully roll the steak up around the filling, and using kitchen twine, tie it so that it stays tightly rolled.
- Put the steak in a roasting pan, and roast in a 400 degree oven until it's cooked how you like it. (Flank steak should, I think, be cooked a bit more well done than some other cuts; like I said, it tends to be a bit tough, and it's got the flavor to stand up to being cooked a bit more). I like it medium, which is about when a probe thermometer stuck into the center of the steak reads about 150 degrees.)
- Let it rest for about ten minutes, and then slice. You can't slice this too thinly, or it will fall apart.
That's it. It comes out very tender, from the combination of the marinade, the butterflying, the pounding to flatten. It's nice and beefy - the flavor of the steak isn't at all overwhelmed, but the flavor of the bacon and peppers and mushrooms in the stuffing are all nicely pronounced.
It's really awfully good. I'm quite proud of this one!
Comments
Sounds good! I'm tempted to use some blue cheese in a recipe like this.
Posted by: Chris | October 10, 2008 4:21 PM
Chris:
That could be really good - blue cheese tends to go really well with steak. I'd just be very careful about quantity - you don't want to overwhelm it with the cheese.
Posted by: Mark C. Chu-Carroll | October 10, 2008 4:24 PM
Sounds delicious! I always find shitake mushrooms go particularly well with steak.
Have you tried Sous vide? It's a method I've been wanting to try out for a while as it is supposed to produce a stunning steak. I still need to get hold of an appropriate thermometer and create something to give a good vacuum seal.
Posted by: Jonathan | October 11, 2008 1:30 PM
Needs more bacon... in fact, replace steak with bacon. heh.
Posted by: nickL | November 18, 2008 3:00 PM