Grilled Skirt Steak with Chorizo Crust
Skirt steak — entraña in Argentina — is the favourite cut off the Argentine grill, here under a gratinated crust of chorizo, cheese and bread. Juicy inside, crisp and spicy outside.
The crust is rolled out 3 mm thin between two sheets of cling film beforehand and chilled, then cut into rectangles. That is the only way to get it evenly onto the meat — spread on as a soft paste, it runs into the coals.
Only the side without the crust gets seasoned: the chorizo brings enough salt with it.
🔎 What is chorizo? — where it comes from, what goes in it and how it differs.
Ingredients
- 2.5 kg skirt steak (or hanger steak)
- 70 g soft butter
- 100 g grated cheese
- 100 g spicy Spanish-style chorizo, skinned and chopped
- 5 slices of fresh white sandwich bread, crusts removed
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Method
- 1
The crust: blitz the butter with the grated cheese, the breadcrumb and the chorizo to a moist, even paste. Roll the mixture out between two sheets of cling film with a rolling pin to a thickness of 3 mm.
- 2
Chilling: keep the sheet of crust in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, until it firms up. Then cut it into rectangles the size of the pieces of meat.
- 3
Preparing the meat: trim the skirt steak of skin and membranes. Season with salt and pepper on one side only — the side that will not take the crust.
- 4
First side: put the steaks on the grill about 15 cm above the coals, seasoned side down, for 3 to 5 minutes until well browned.
- 5
Gratinating: turn the steaks over. Lay the cold rectangles of crust onto the barely warm surface. Cover the meat with an upturned roasting tray, warmed beforehand in the coals, and put glowing embers on top of it to create heat from above.
- 6
Finishing: cook for another 3 to 5 minutes, until the crust is gratinated and the meat is at the doneness you want. Serve immediately.