I can never go wrong in our house serving a flat iron steak for dinner. I normally make a very traditional chimichurri sauce but the other night I was out of a few items for the chimichurri and decided to invent something new. As my family is looking for green sauce to put on a steak anyway I thought I would give a kale and basil mix a try, the sauce was great something between a pesto and a chimichurri. They really enjoyed it and the left over sauce thinned with more olive oil and some lemon juice was a great salad dressing the next night. If you don’t feel like making the sauce, this citrus marinated flank steak will make awesome steak fajitas.
Flat Iron Steaks are a part of the beef shoulder that tastes really good because of some extra marbling, but it is a bit tougher. Flat Iron steaks are perfect cut for rich and acidic marinades that help tenderize the beef. These steaks are great for grilling since they do have some extra marbling that keeps them juicy over the high heat on the BBQ. If you don’t have a BBQ an indoor grill pan is also a good option for cooking these tasty and affordable steaks. Heck if all you have is a George Forman Grill, go for it!
Marinated Flat Iron Steak with Kale and Basil Sauce
Ingredients
- Two 1 lbs Flat Iron Steaks
Marinade
- 2 clementine oranges
- 1 lemon
- Half a grapefruit
- ½ cup tequila
- ½ triple sec
- 1 palm full of cumin seeds
- 1 tbsp of granulated garlic
- 1 tbsp salt
- ½ cup olive oil
Kale & Basil Steak Sauce
- 3 large leaves of kale
- ½ cup of basil
- Zest of half a grapefruit and one clementine orange
- Juice of half a grapefruit
- Juice of one mandarin/clementine orange
- 2 cloves of garlic microplaned
- About ½ cup of olive oil
- Salt and Pepper
Instructions
For the Flank Steaks
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Mix all the ingredients in the marinade in a large non-reactive container and place your flank steaks in the marinade coating well. Let the meat marinate for a few hours or overnight giving the steak a flip once in a while to ensure that the meat is getting evenly flavored.
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When you are ready to grill pull the steaks out of the fridge and let it come up to room temperature. Remove the steaks from the marinade, pat them dry with a paper towel, coat lightly with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. My grill master husband grilled them over medium high heat for about 2-3 minutes a side. We let the steaks rest for at least five minutes before slicing them across the grain for serving.
For the Kale & Basil Steak Sauce
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This sauce can be made well in advance of grilling the steaks. Put all the ingredients but the olive oil in a food processor and turn it on. Then drizzle in the olive oil stopping to scrape the sides and check the consistency of the sauce.
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When it’s the right thickness for you stop adding olive oil and taste it to adjust the salt and pepper. If you like a little heat in your sauce add some dry red pepper flake it will give it a nice kick!
This sauce sounds great! Never tried anything similar before
Give it a try we liked it!!! Hope you do too.