Flank steak is, to my taste, the least flavorful of the three but it takes to marinating so well that you can make it flavorful. Its fibers are more porous than the others, so it soaks up flavor more readily. For maximum flavor and optimum tenderness, just don't cook it to more than medium –better yet, medium-rare -- and slice it on a sharp bias.
The Hanger Steak used to be called Butcher's Tenderloin because the butcher's would save this singular muscle for his own family, or turn it into chopped meat. In France, it is the steak of bistros – as in steak frites -- and it is called l'onglet. It was the French bistros in New York that made it popular here just a few years ago.
Here's a memory: My mother's standard hamburger and meatloaf order at the butcher was "two pounds ground neck and tenderloin." That's what she told me to say. It was like a mantra. When I was old enough to know about filet mignon and that it was also called tenderloin – somewhere in my mid teens – I wondered why my mother used "tenderloin" for chopped meat. Naturally, it was the Butcher's Tenderloin.
Anyway, Hanger Steak is tough and needs to be tenderized with a marinade. I have been experimenting using papaya seeds to tenderize the meat, as well as some red wine vinegar mixed with extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper, and dried thyme to flavor it. Vinegar, or any acidic ingredient, is a tenderizer, too.
To release the tenderizing substance in the papaya seeds, I crush them with my meat pounder. Don't pound the round seeds. They will jump from under the pounder. Just use pressure to crush them. Spread them on both sides of the meat. For each 1 ½-pound steak, use the seeds from a half of a papaya. Season the meat with salt and pepper, and pour on two tablespoons each vinegar and oil, plus sprinkle with about a teaspoon of crushed dried thyme. I have been doing a 24-hour marination – in the refrigerator – and everyone has loved the meat, which I serve sliced, rare to medium rare. I am, however, about to abandon the papaya seed marination in favor of my friend Rozanne Gold's recipe using green salsa – tomatilla-based salsa, tomatillas being acid enough to tenderize. She used the marinade for Skirt Steak, but it will work equally well with Hanger. That's one of the links you'll find in the Maven's Diary right now.
On another note, a reminder :
I will be in the Hamptons this weekend, for the first time in ages.
I will attend Joan Hamburg's remote broadcast from the Blue Parrot tonight (Thursday) at 6 p.m. – so I am sure to see some of you this weekend.
Tomorrow morning, Friday, at about 0 a.m., I will be on the Hampton's Morning Show broadcast live on Plum TV (channel 18) from B. Smith's restaurant in Sag Harbor.
Tomorrow evening at 7 p.m., I will be at Bookhampton meeting and greeting and signing books. (You all come out.)
On Saturday evening I am the auctioneer at the benefit party for ECCO Farm, the ecological farm that does such good work in teaching children about food and their environment. Check Maven's Personal Appearances for more information on these doings.
