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Dinner Tonight: Chile-Rubbed London Broil

Posted by Nick Kindelsperger, August 24, 2007 at 5:00 PM

Steak can be the perfect last-minute dinner. A good cut can be seared and served in minutes, but it can also be expensive. Usually the quicker and easier it is to prepare, the more expensive the cut tends to be. And it doesn’t always have the most flavor.

I pulled this from the Chef on a Shoestring, and London broil certainly is an apt addition to the pantheon of cheap cuts. The pound-and-a-half cut I picked up was right around $5.

I can safely say I’ve never loaded a steak with this much seasoning. It felt wrong. It looked wrong. I’m not sure if you could even tell that there was meat underneath. I was dangerously close to rubbing all the seasoning off. Thankfully, I let all those spices sear on the hot skillet and imbue the meat with a wonderful chile aroma. Even though I marinated this tough cut for about as long as it took to preheat the oven, I ended up with a highly flavorful, tender dinner.

Chile-Rubbed London Broil

Adapted from Chef on a Shoestring.

Ingredients

1 London broil (roughly 1 1/2 pounds)
1 bottle of dark beer
1/3 cup chile powder
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons canola oil

Procedure

1. Preheat the oven to 425°F. Place the steak in a bowl. Pour in the beer; let marinate for as long as you have time. I had 30 minutes. When done, pat steak dry.

2. Combine the chile powder, dried basil, black pepper, and salt. Coat meat thoroughly and completely.

3. Heat the oil over medium-high heat in a cast-iron skillet. Add steak. Brown on both sides, about 1 to 2 minutes a side. Move the skillet to the oven. Cook 5 to 6 minutes more.

4. Remove steak from skillet, let sit for 5 minutes; thinly slice across the grain.

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Tags: beef, London broil, meat, steak

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