Asian Flank Steak

francesca_362939

Loving my Joule! Have two and been using them everyday. Here's something I made.

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Comments

pd3ski_278514

Welcome to the forum francesca! Nice looking pile of meat!👍

Post more pics now that you know how!

geemcwee

Eat as good as it looks?

francesca_362939

Actually I didn't cook it long enough for tenderness, but my son loved it.

wolfiegirl

Time of cook and temp please!

francesca_362939

131F/90 min-Way to short of time for this type of cut but I followed a recipe that stated this time and gave it a try. I think 4-6 or 8 hours would have made this tender.

brian_martin2001

For flank steak, at 131°F I've seen it recommended for 12 hours, but I haven't seen it recommended less than 3. Good luck! Let us know how it comes out the next go round!

Brandon_Byrd_40557

I have no idea why in the world people think you have to cook flank steak for extended periods given that it's perfectly delicious grilled quickly over a very hot fire. Most of the tenderness problems people think they have with flank steak are caused by slicing it incorrectly. In the photo above, for example, the cuts are straight across and entirely with the grain so that the muscle fibers run the full length of each slice. That's a recipe for chewy steak. If you cut the same steak diagonally against the grain, the texture would be much better.

I used to cook a lot of SV flank steak... I'd buy in bulk when I found it on sale, season and bag it, and cook for 1.5-2 hours @ 130F. The only reason I did this was convenience. Having pre-cooked, relatively thin, pre-seasoned beef in the freezer made it easy to bang out a quality tacos/nachos/salads/whatever on a weeknight. But I haven't done that in a long time. Instead, I just grill it. This is one of those cuts for which SV offers no real advantage over traditional cooking (at least in my experience). Skirt steak, even more so (unless you're going to do something weird like stack a bunch of it up and bind it with Activa to make a thick skirt steak... which I've done, and is delicious).

wolfiegirl

That's what I thought....too short a cooking time.

#flank

tangma27

cut across the grain!

francesca_362939

Agree with you about cutting across the grain-but a chef-I'm not one-told me I cut it correctly. I don't usually cook flank or skirt steaks, but if I do in the future, I still will be experimenting with the Joule. To each his/her own. Thanks for the comments.

Brandon_Byrd_40557

With all respect to your chef friend, he is wrong. The grain is visibly running from left to right in the unsliced portion of your image, which is also the way that the steak was sliced. When you slice with the grain, the individual muscle fibers will be visible along the entire slice. Check out this image from AmazingRibs.com that shows flank steak cut with the grain (the "wrong" way) and flank steak cut against the grain (the "right" way):

It's a difference you can see. In the top image, there are long, visible muscle fibers that run the entire length of each slice. This makes a tremendous difference to the final texture of the meat. Check out this video from America's Test Kitchen about slicing flank steak and the difference that slicing can make. They cook flank steak sous vide to 130F and then use a texture analyzer to measure how much force it takes to bite through the steak when sliced differently. The numbers are very interesting; when sliced against the grain, flank is almost as tender as a NY Strip. When sliced with the grain, it is much, much, tougher.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcUfgqmSt_Y

I don't know why the video isn't embedding properly, but it's worth clicking through to YouTube. It's the best video I've seen about the importance of slicing against the grain.

At any rate, I wish you luck in your future SV experiments with flank and skirt! Be sure to post your results and let us know what you like/dislike.

francesca_362939

Thank you so much for your informative post. Appreciate the time you took to write this. I will definitely look into the info, especially the amazing ribs site. I rarely, if ever cook, flank steak, but with your and everyone's advice, I'll probably doing more of this cut and will keep you all tuned along with my many new trials with the Joule.

Jeremy_131558

Are you saying that low temp offers no improvement over hot grilling for skirt steaks as well?

Brandon_Byrd_40557

That's what I'm saying. The problem with skirt, especially, is that it's so thin, it's close to impossible to sear without cooking the interior to at least medium rare. You could potentially get around this by cooking SV, chilling the skirt steak down, and then deep frying at the end... but I have no desire to do that. Not because that's fussy -- I do a deep-fry post-sear relatively frequently -- but because I don't think it would taste better than just grilling it. What SV does provide an advantage for is extended storage; you can buy skirt when it goes on sale, vacuum seal it, cook SV until pasteurized, and then pull it from the fridge and throw it on the grill whenever you want to. I have done that many times, and it's convenient. But the texture and taste aren't better than starting with raw product straight from the fridge.

Jeremy_131558

I have to disagree man. I've been doing skirts for a while and I just find it so much more enjoyable than straight grilled. Possibly due to my lack of grill mastery but I don't know.

I definitely agree the crust could be a little more robust but it's not bad! I do a full unrolled skirt at 136f for 8 hours. Pay dry. Rub with oil then broil for 1min a side roughly. My fav hands down for steak sandwiches.