How to Make Tender Pan-Seared Flank Steak with Mustard-Chive Butter

[Music] flank steak is the boneless skinless chicken breast of the beef world it cooks quickly there are no bones to fuss with and you can use it to make everything from fajitas to stir fries the cooked as just a steak well it's got some real problems to deal with flank steak has a very distinctive grain running right through that mussel and when cooked it buckles that creates a thick end and a thin end and those cook unevenly and it tastes like an old rubber tire which is not good but today we're going to give flank steak it's due and i've got a few tricks up my sleeve moving on to our patient here it weighs between one and a half to one and three quarter pounds and one of the problems that we have with flying steak is fitting it into the pan yeah even a 12-inch skillet it's going to be kind of a problem fitting that into the pan it'll start creeping up the sides eventually it shrinks but we want to get it all into the pan at the same time so this is one of the most genius things i've ever heard of we're going to cut it so that it fits cut it out so i'll take a sharp chef's knife i'll go right across the grain and then lengthwise there we go so we do want to add some seasonings to this we want seasonings to penetrate the meat but we also want to help out with browning on the exterior because it is a relatively thin piece of meat so we want to brown quickly before it cooks all the way through so i'm going to take some paper towels and just pat it dry you can also do this while the steak is in one piece and now i'm going to make a little bit of a seasoning mix all right i have two teaspoons of kosher salt and they've got nice large grains going to be easy to rub this onto the meat i'm going to mix a teaspoon of sugar that's really going to help with browning and a half a teaspoon of black pepper easy to mix together and then i'll rub it on all sides of the steak all right and i'll just press this on so it adheres to the meat flip it over all right once again press it all in now i'm going to transfer this to a rimmed baking sheet i put a wire rack right on there it's going to elevate the stakes so that some heat can get underneath them and also help them cook now we're not going to sear these right on the stove i'm just going to say what's your game plan here yes it's a very large skillet now we're going to bake these in the oven and i say bake because we're not roasting them it's a really really low oven 225 and the reason is is we don't want a super blast of heat to start and shrink these flank steaks up because they will buckle and also it'll squeeze out all that moisture from the inside of the steaks now the oven is also going to help us later on with browning it's going to dry out the exterior of the steaks later on there won't be any moisture on there that we have to get rid of before we sear now since these are going into such a low oven and there are four steaks and we want to make sure that they all cook pretty evenly well instead of going in there every few minutes with an instant read thermometer i'm going to use i love these probe thermometer ah and i'll go ahead and just place this right in the center of one of these steaks because if you're opening the oven door all the time that oven's already pretty low if you lose all that heat you can extend the cooking time of the steak by a long time a lot long that's right and you'd end up with pretty much dried steaks instead of cooked steaks i'm going to put these in the oven i'll keep this right on the side and we'll know exactly when these reach 120 degrees all right the alarm says it's 120. they still look real on the outside they do they're not too pretty at this point it's like very thick beef jerky right now it is now we are going to sear so i've been heating up two tablespoons of vegetable oil over medium high heat i'm going to wait for that to come up to the point where it just starts to smoke in the meantime we're going to make a compound butter so i've got three tablespoons of unsalted butter softened now i just like to mash it up a little bit before i add all my ingredients a tablespoon of minced chives a little bit of dijon mustard that's two teaspoons a half a teaspoon of grated lemon zest and a teaspoon of lemon juice ooh that thing tastes good nice and light mustard lemon and chives and butter all right so there we go set that aside let's get back to the skillet and we see that the oil she's at a shimmer so now we can go ahead and place these steaks in and then i'm going to flip them every minute and that's to ensure that they don't overcook and to develop a really nice brown crust all right we've passed the first minute i'm going to go ahead and flip these over oh those stakes are starting to look a whole lot better and as you mentioned they are curling on that one side by flipping them every minute that's going to fix the curl another minute another flipping time so the flank steak has long muscle fibers that shrink up when they come in contact with a hot pan which causes the steak to buckle once the steak is buckled it's no longer flat and that means you won't get even browning by flipping the meat every minute the muscle fibers on both sides of the steak shrink at the same rate thereby reducing the buckling effect mmm this should be our last flip over these digs look amazing all right let's turn the heat off these are coming out of the skillet oh yes oh wait those are really gorgeous aren't they beautiful yeah i mean we eat flank steak all the time at our house i don't think i've ever made them look that beautiful before so we're going to leave these for about 10 minutes so that they can cool down so we can eat them and also it's just going to allow any juices in the meat to redistribute they are still there i counted them before we waited 10 minutes and i'm proud of you because there's still four on that sheep and you're lucky i came close to taking a little nibble i bet you did well we are going to go ahead and slice into these i'm just gonna slice open two one for you one for me and we'll come back and eat the other two so now i'm going to add a little bit of butter about one and a half teaspoons i'll spread it out a little bit oh yes now you're talking oh butter on steak is just the best idea so i'm going to slice these against the grain very very thinly as thinly as i can that is perfectly cooked steak come to mama oh no gray band no all pink in the middle drenched with butter hello how's that gorgeous feel free to dollop some more butter on yours i have some extra chives here all right let's see how this tastes that is a thing of beauty this is amazing it tastes like a really expensive steak it's super tender perfectly cooked in that butter i have to say with that little bitty dijon that's where it's at ordinary flank steak can be transformed into an extraordinary dinner start by cutting the steak into pieces fit for a skillet and add salt and sugar to season and help brown then bake the steaks in a low oven before searing them in a hot skillet to develop a delicious crust beat that buckle by flipping them every 60 seconds and finally slice thinly against the grain for maximum tenderness and serve with a flavorful compound butter and there you have it from our test kitchen to your home kitchen an out of this world pan seared flank steak with mustard chive butter thanks for watching america's test kitchen what'd you think well leave a comment and let us know which recipes you're excited to make or you can just say hello you can find links to today's recipes and reviews in the video description and don't forget to subscribe to our channel see you later i'll see you later

Channel: America's Test Kitchen

Views: 312,431

Keywords: flank steak, flank steak recipe, how to make flank steak, steak recipes, steak, cooking, recipe, america's test kitchen, americas test kitchen, butter, mustard butter, herb butter, steak with herb butter, how to cook flank steak

Id: 09NWdr5YAJY

Length: 7min 50sec (470 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 28 2019