As a child visiting the family in Texas, I remember my Uncle used to always make his fajitas using skirt steak.  It is a long, flat, usually thin piece of meat, that he said, “needed attention” before cooking so it wouldn’t be tough.  I now take the phrase “needing attention” to mean that a marinade will do the trick, and here is one that I like a lot for this flavorful cut.

If you don’t want to use the grill you can pan fry this steak instead, but the grill does make it especially good. While similar in ways, skirt steak is not the same cut as a flank steak, so if you use flank steak, I recommend marinating longer because it is a tougher cut of meat and I wouldn’t pan fry it—broil instead if you’re not going to grill.  When slicing a flank steak, also remember to slice it thinly on a diagonal across the grain.

If you’re looking for something nice for Father’s Day, try this Skirt Steak with the Red Potatoes with Sour Cream Sauce posted last and the Southwestern Chopped Salad that follows.

Grilled Skirt Steak

Serves 6

Ingredients for Steak:

2 pounds skirt steak
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
¾ teaspoon ground cumin
1 cup cilantro leaves
1 small shallot, finely chopped
1 small garlic clove, minced
Juice of 1 small lime
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper

Preparation:

Whisk together the oil, cumin, cilantro, shallot, garlic, lime juice, salt and pepper in a small bowl.  Place the skirt steak in a glass dish and pour the marinade over.  Refrigerate for at least two hours and up to six.

Bring the steak to room temperature before grilling.  Grill the steak for 4 to 6 minutes on each side or until done.  Transfer to a cutting board, cover with foil and let stand for 10 minutes.  Slice and serve.

Shepherd’s pie is a dish I associate with the English or Irish countryside, although lots of countries seem to have a version of this home cooking staple.    It is a comforting preparation of beef or lamb, covered and baked with a mashed potato topping.  I have seen it referred to also as Cottage pie (maybe referring to the humble dwellings of its earliest cooks), Potato Top Pie (in New Zealand), Cowboy pie (in Texas—here in the U.S.) and by other names I can’t spell in France, and Canada and in Russia.
It is perfect for a family dinner, dinner for two when you want to have leftovers, as a potluck contribution, or even for entertaining on a cold winter’s night.  It is easy to make and fun to experiment with.  The meat can be beef or lamb, the vegetables can vary based on what you have in the refrigerator, the topping can be enhanced by adding a handful of cheddar cheese or a sprinkling of your favorite herb.  It’s a meal in one, needing only a simple green salad on the side.

Shepherd’s Pie

Serves 6

Preparation Time:  30 minutes
Cook Time:  30 minutes
Total Time:  1 hour

Ingredients for the filling:

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 pound ground beef
2 carrots, peeled and diced
1 onion, diced
½ cup frozen peas, thawed
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup beef stock or broth
1 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon fresh or dried thyme
Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation of the filling:

Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat.  Add the ground beef and cook, stirring and breaking it up while it browns.  Add the carrots and onion and continue to cook until the onion is translucent and the carrots have softened, about 5 minutes.  Add the peas and continue to cook for 1 minute.

Sprinkle the flour over the meat mixture and cook, stirring, until the flour is fully incorporated.  Add the beef stock, the Worcestershire sauce and the thyme and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has thickened to a gravy consistency.  Taste and salt and pepper to your liking.

Ingredients for the potato topping:

6 russet potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 tablespoons sour cream
1 tablespoon cream cheese, at room temperature
1 tablespoon butter
Salt and pepper to taste
Paprika

Preparation of the potato topping:

Place the diced potatoes in a medium saucepan, cover with water, bring to the boil and cook until the potatoes are very tender.  Remove from the heat and drain the potatoes in a colander and return them to the hot pan.  Add the sour cream, the cream cheese and the butter and whip the potatoes until they are smooth—using a hand mixer.  Taste and season with salt and pepper.

To assemble the dish:

Place the meat filling in a buttered, 9” x 13” rectangular or oval baking dish.  Top the meat filling with the potato topping, covering the meat completely to the edges of the dish.  Sprinkle paprika over the top and bake in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until hot and lightly browned on the top.

This dish is usually referred to as New England Boiled Dinner, and for years I made it the traditional way—in one pot—beginning with the beef and onions, cooking that for 2 to 3 hours and adding cabbage, carrots and potatoes to the pot for the last hour.  Voila!  Dinner.

I now make the dish this way—heightening the taste a bit by slow-cooking the beef and then roasting the carrots and potatoes separately so that they are brown and caramelized and a great complement to the mild, smooth cabbage.   Served with a good mustard or horseradish cream sauce, this is equally perfect as a Sunday night supper or something you come home to after a long day out.  And the leftovers make terrific sandwiches or a heartwarming soup.  I also like to make this in a slow cooker—put it on in the morning and forget about it until it’s time to roast the vegetables, but it tastes just as nice made in a Dutch oven—and I’ve included the times for both.

New England Corned Beef Dinner

Serves 6

1 3 to 4 pound corned beef (seasoning packet discarded)
2 large yellow onions cut into quarters
1 ½ cups of water
1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
1 small head cabbage, cut into wedges
5 to 6 large carrots, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces
8 small red potatoes, scrubbed and cut into quarters
2 tablespoons olive oil

In a slow cooker (or a Dutch oven if you don’t want to use the slow cooker) place the onions in the bottom to cover.  Lay the beef on top of the onions.  Pour the water over.  Sprinkle the top of the beef with the pepper and the garlic powder.  Cook on high heat for 8 hours (or on top of the stove in the Dutch oven for 2-3 hours) until the beef is very tender.  Add the cabbage—just arrange the wedges right on top of the beef– for the last 2 hours (if using the slow cooker) or the last hour (if using the Dutch oven) and continue to cook until the cabbage is tender.

An hour before you plan to eat, preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Place an oven rack in the lower third of your oven.  Toss the potatoes and carrots with the olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Place the vegetables in a roasting pan and roast on the bottom rack of the oven for one hour, stirring after 30 minutes.

When the meat is done, remove it from the pot to a cutting board and let rest while you plate the vegetables.  Slice the beef on the diagonal and serve it all with mustard and/or horseradish cream sauce.

Horseradish Cream Sauce

½ cup sour cream
2 heaping tablespoon fresh grated horseradish
2 tablespoons of heavy cream

Combine the sour cream, horseradish and heavy cream and let chill in the refrigerator for an hour or two before serving.

Brrrr.  With all apologies to our northern neighbors for whining…us Floridians are really sissies when it comes to cold weather, and these last few weeks have been really cold.  While we haven’t had snow (although our brethren in the panhandle have) our tropical plants are wilted and looking quite pathetic, our lips and cheeks are chapped, and almost nobody I know here has enough winter clothes—so we’re all wearing the same sweatshirts, sweaters and pants over and over and over again.  Like I said brrrr.

The good news is that this weather has given us an unprecedented opportunity to cook our favorite winter comfort foods—and eat them in front of a warming fire. And in my family, Beef Bourguignon is at the top of the list of comfort foods.  Who doesn’t like a long-simmering rich, deeply flavored stew studded with beef that is dark brown on the outside and tender to the fork, our favorite sturdy winter vegetable trilogy of onions, carrots and mushrooms with a sauce that is happy to be spooned next to mashed potatoes, over wide egg noodles, or wiped clean with a crusty sourdough or other fresh baked bread.  Add a salad and a glass of red wine or cider, and feel the warmth of family contentment.  This recipe makes enough to feed a party—or for a family of four to enjoy the leftovers through the week.

Beef Bourguignon
(Adapted from The New Basics Recipe by Julee Rosso & Sheila Lukins)

Serves 8 to 10 generously

Preparation time:  1 hour
Cook time:  2 hours
Total time:  3 hours

Ingredients:

½ pound bacon, diced
3 pounds beef chuck, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 large onion, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 cups of a hearty red wine (burgundy if you have it)
3 cups beef stock
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon rosemary (fresh or dried is fine)
4 large carrots, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces
1 bag of frozen white pearl onions
8 ounces fresh mushrooms (any kind you like, but wild is nicest)
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 tablespoon red currant jelly

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a Dutch oven or ovenproof casserole, sauté the bacon until crisp.  Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon and set aside.  Pour off all but 2 tablespoons of the bacon drippings.  Brown the beef in the bacon fat in batches so as not to overcrowd the beef.  When all are brown, return the beef to the pot and add the onion.  Sprinkle the beef and onion mixture with salt, pepper and the flour.  Stir to combine well and cook, continuing to stir for 3 minutes (the idea here is to make sure that the flour has cooked enough to lose its “flour” taste—it should brown a bit with the onions and the beef).  Add the wine, the beef stock, the tomato paste, the rosemary and the reserved bacon.  Stir to deglaze the pot and bring the mixture to the boil.  Cover and place in the oven to cook for hours or until the meat is very tender.

While the beef is cooking, prepare the vegetables.  Drain the pearl onions in a colander (they can be thawing while they’re draining).  Bring water to the boil in a small saucepan.  Add the cut carrots and parboil for about 7 minutes until crisp tender.  Add them to the colander with the onions and drain.  Wipe the mushrooms clean, remove their stems and cut the caps into quarters.  In a small sauté pan, melt the butter and then sauté the mushrooms until they have released all of their juices and are slightly browned.  Set aside.
When the meat has cooked for 1 ½ hours, add the onion, carrots, mushrooms and jelly to the pot.  Return to the oven and continue to cook for another 30 to 40 minutes to heat the vegetables through.  Serve immediately or cool and store in the refrigerator.  This stew improves with age.

At the risk of losing a friend or two, I must confess that we were very happy to see the Saints win the Super Bowl.  My husband (and trusty photographer) was born and raised in New Orleans and we have lots of family there and in the area.  So Sunday was a fun day full of fun and celebration—and we all overindulged in buffalo chicken dip, guacamole, and all kinds of other goodies.

On Monday, feeling the need to simplify the diet and cut back the carbs a bit—we opted for a very simple grilled flank steak that is one of our top five family favorite ways to eat meat.  Even though the beef is a bit of a splurge—flank steak is a very lean cut—so it’s not too bad.  And on low-carb-lighten-up days, we just serve this with a little bit of roasted fennel and a very nice crunchy green salad with light vinaigrette.  The salty, lemony, gingery spice of the marinade is really delicious as a dipping sauce (I serve mine on the side in small lotus bowls).  If you have any leftover, it makes a killer sandwich or topping for a Caesar salad the next day.

Flank Steak with Asian Marinade

Serves 4

Ingredients:

¼ cup soy sauce
¼ cup Worcestershire sauce
Juice of ½ fresh lemon
¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh ginger
1 ½ pound flank steak

In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice, cilantro and ginger.  Put the flank steak in a glass baking dish and pour the marinade over.  Refrigerate for 8 hours, turning occasionally.

Preheat an outdoor grill (to medium-high heat) or preheat broiler.  Remove the steak from the marinade.  Strain the marinade through a fine sieve into a small saucepan.  Grill or broil the steak for 5 to 10 minutes (depending on thickness) per side for medium rare.  Transfer the steak to a cutting board, tent with foil and let stand for 10 minutes.  Meanwhile, bring the marinade to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes.  Slice the steak thinly across the grain and serve the marinade on the side.

Sometimes, you just want a steak, particularly if you are a boy.  So on days when I am feeling particularly accommodating and ask my kids what they feel like having for dinner—I’m prepared to hear their answer—which half the time will be “steak.”

One day, wanting to cook a little, instead of just having my husband (and Sauce & Sensibility photographer extraordinaire!) do the honors on the grill…I decided to try something different.  It came from a recipe card in my mother’s old recipe box (in which I have found a lot of treasure…).  It smelled wonderful while cooking, and tasted even better.  My sons loved the salty, tangy, fresh taste of it, even though it looked a bit “green” for their still-developing culinary eyes.  Serve this over your favorite grilled or pan-fried steak.  I did it here with sliced New York strip—patted dry, lightly coated with coarsely ground black pepper and simply grilled.  If you go the pan route, use the same pan that you fry the steak in and the sauce will be enhanced by the pan juices.

Herb Sauce for Steak

Preparation Time:  5 minutes
Cook Time:  10 minutes
Total Time:  15 minutes

Ingredients:

¼ cup dry white wine
¼ cup beef broth
2 tablespoons minced shallots
4 anchovy fillets, chopped
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons fresh green herbs, chopped (just parsley is fine or any mixture that you like will work—of parsley, thyme, chervil, chives or anything else that you have)

Preparation:

Pour the wine into a small saucepan.  Add the broth, shallots, and anchovies, bring the mixture to a boil and then simmer until the mixture reduces to a few syrupy spoonfuls. Remove from heat.  Whisk in the butter 1 tablespoon at a time.  Stir in the chopped herbs, taste to correct the seasoning with salt or pepper, and serve immediately with sliced steak.