Welcome to the fourth edition of the Barbecue Secrets podcast, a show celebrating the many pleasures of outdoor cooking. E-mail questions, tips and suggestions to rockinronnie@ronshewchuk.com. In this edition:
- An interview with Barbecue Queen Karen Adler
- Talking with Johan Olsen of Cobb Canada about a great charcoal-fueled portable cooker, the Cobb
- Competition Corner -- Tequilas at dawn
Links
Visit the Barbecue Queens' website. Find more info about the Cobb in Canada, or internationally.
Podcast #4 Guest Recipe
This divinely delicious recipe for grilling flak steak is reprinted with permission from The BBQ Queens' Big Book of Barbecue by Karen Adler and Judith Fertig (Harvard Common Press, 2005)
Grilled Flank, Skirt, Hangar, or Other Thin Steak
The whole steak scene had gotten a bit ho-hum. Very predictable. You knew what cuts were available: rib-eye, strip, sirloin, flank. You knew what to do with them. And then, all of a sudden, things changed. There were new cuts and names, such as beef bavette and skirt, hangar, flat iron, patio, and charcoal steak. Whassup? (as a hip-hop queen might ask).
The change is partly a result of consumer interest in ethnic foods, hence the loose-grained skirt steak (the diaphragm muscle on a steer and the first choice for making great fajitas) and the beef bavette (cut from the flank for the French bistro steak and frites combo). Both can be hard to find at the grocery store but are readily available at butcher shops and from online vendors such as Niman Ranch.
In addition, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, based in Colorado, has championed new �moderately priced� options such as the flat iron steak, cut from the beef chuck, and the western griller, cut from the bottom round. Cube steak, a.k.a. minute steak, has been around for a while. It is cut from the round and cubed twice to tenderize this tasty but tough piece of meat and make it great for grilling (a minute per side, not surprisingly). The hangar steak comes from the flank and is actually a thick muscle. It is much tougher than flank steak but is a bistro favorite and is also referred to as onglet.
