Carne Asada

There admittedly isn't much art in taking a beef tenderloin and making a great meal. In fact, it is easier to get in the way and mess it up. However, taking a more humble (read "cheaper") cut with less marbling (which means less fat and flavor making it much healthier) takes so work and some knowledge. As Mexican is our favorite genre of food, we most often accomplish this goal by turning flank steak into carne asada (which translates to "roasted meat", although that isn't perfectly descriptive). I am confident this will work with any protein, and thus for game cuts, this would be ideal.

The key to my method is to first cook the meat in the refrigerator overnight, using chemistry and not heat. This is exactly how cerviche is made with seafood (scallops, shrimp, fish). I do like cerviche, but I will confess I have to be in the right mood, because the texture is so odd. For my purposes, I use lime juice and lots of it. About 8 limes will usually produce enough juice, to which I only add a few squirts of olive oil, a generous amount of salt and freshly minced garlic. In a freezer bag with your steak overnight, this caustic acid and salt brine will literally cook your steak, turning it an ugly gray. Then flash grill it (see my previous post) to seal in the juices and caramelize the outside, let it rest, cut it against the grain and enjoy. The options for how to serve it are limitless (nachos, quesadilla, over rice, burritos, etc).