Grilled Brown Sugar Skirt Steak

[Celerity]

This 3-ingredient rub is pure magic on grilled skirt steak

https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/07/20/grilled-brown-sugar-skirt-steak-recipe/

https://archive.ph/8JUYR



Summer is the laziest season in the kitchen for me. I don’t know if it’s the heat or my kid being out of school that makes me so unmotivated, but I have absolutely zero desire to cook. Even chopping ingredients feels onerous. In an ideal world, I’d be eating a bottomless bowl of cut-up watermelon for my meals. But in the real world, dinner still has to be made. Motivated by this laziness – yes, I am aware that’s an oxymoron – I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking of dishes that require minimum effort and deliver maximum flavor.

Which brings me to this brown sugar grilled skirt steak recipe. Besides the meat, it contains just three ingredients: salt, pepper and brown sugar. I bet you have them in your kitchen at this moment. The preparation is so simple it’s embarrassing. Were it not extremely delicious, I wouldn’t have even bothered sharing it. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were to roll your eyes upon reading the recipe, but before you discount it, know that it’s become our family’s favorite grilling recipe and one that’s requested whenever we host a cookout. I use skirt steak below because it’s more affordable, and its thinness means it cooks fast. If skirt is unavailable, other similar steak cuts, such as flank (sometimes labelled as “bavette”) or hanger sub in nicely.



The process couldn’t be easier: Mix together the seasoning ingredients, then sprinkle them all over the steak, rubbing the mixture into the meat so it adheres. If you plan ahead, you can refrigerate the meat for a few hours and up to overnight, and be rewarded with deeper flavor. Otherwise, just set the steak aside to take the chill off and let the seasoning permeate the meat.

Then, throw the meat on the grill and watch the magic happen. The high heat will caramelize the sugar and the sweet-salty combination complements the floral notes of black pepper. Additionally, the sugars and proteins in the meat undergo the Maillard reaction. As my colleague Becky Krystal wrote, “In Maillard, sugars … interact with the amino acids of proteins, creating a cascade of new flavors and aroma compounds, with several hundred possibilities.” It’s truly mind-blowing that so few ingredients deliver such depth of flavor.

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[wyn borkins]

1. Wow - A Super Simple Summer Recipe Celeritybration (n/t)