Sunday, August 8, 2010

Marinated Flank Steak Fajitas

It may come as a shock to some, but we have never made fajitas before. Tacos and quesadillas are our "Mexican" stand-bys. So, when my wife said she bought some flank steak to do fajitas, I was very eager to give it a go.

Following our characteristic of planning meals late in the day, we took the flank steak out around noon to defrost. Around came 4pm and it still was an ice block; turn on the cold water to help this process move along. Ok, not the best method, but it does the trick when needed.

Ok, now we have the steak ready to be marinated and we had looked on-line to find a concoction. All Recipes came to the rescue:   http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/marinated-flank-steak/Detail.aspx


  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 1/3 cup soy sauce
  • 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 1 1/2 pounds flank steak

Surprisingly enough, we had all these ingredients in the house! I knew buying that red wine vinegar would come in handy! 

We combined everything and let it marinade for about 3.5 hours. It called for 6+, but as I mentioned, we were late planners. 

Grilled the steak for 7 minutes each side and let it sit for about 5 minutes before taking the electric knife to it - I think slightly less on the grill would be good, perhaps 5-6 minutes each side. In the mean time, we sauteed some green and red peppers and an onion, and got the sour cream, cheese and salsa ready. I tried to slice the meat very thin and as you can see by the photo, it was solid effort. (You'll also see how it could have used just a little less time on the grill).
And here were the delicious vegetables to accompany the steak
So, our thoughts - well the meat was delicious. It had a nice crust to it from the grill and the inside was moist and tender. We started eating it as I was cutting - it had the potential of being eaten before we even got the chance to wrap everything up! It was very, very good. Great flavours from everything really - it was all so distinctive and yet came together as one. I highly recommend the marinade and we'll be doing it again in the near future - just that we'll plan better and let it sit for longer - help soak up more!