Marinated flank steak

En Español

T and I have very different ways of planning events in our home. While it seems to me that involving our friends in my cooking experiments the most natural thing to do, for T using people as "Guinea pigs" and giving them something that is not 100% success guaranteed is unthinkable. It becomes an endless source of anguish and shame for him.
He recites the list of multiple disaster meals that I imposed on unsuspecting guests; unfortunately there is much evidence against my case. He very rarely fails to mention the time I made a lasagna without tomato paste that someone very kindly ate; or the night my friends fell into a lethargic stupor (almost coma) because I gave them an unmanageable burden of carbohydrates and starches, together with hot chocolate; or the time –early in our marrage- when his love for me was tested by my lack of culinary skills and knowledge of biology. I gave him an unidentified item from the ocean, which I didn't thaw well and didn't cook enough in the oven. We ended up eating white, thick, chewy medallions, which gave us a brain freeze every time we bit them because the center was completely frozen.

Despite all these examples to show that cooking is not one of my natural talents, I still think that including people in my culinary adventures is the way to go ... if I wait for my skills to improve, I won’t have guests ever again.

Under the precepts of this philosophy, and T's anguish, we invited H, E and C to dinner. It was the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. That night, I prepared marinated Flank steak. I found the original recipe on the web page of Ree Drumon, "The Pioneer Woman". That day I followed the instructions to the letter. The ingredients I used to make the marinara sauce were:
1/2 cup soy sauce,
1/2 cup cooking sherry,
3 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons sesame oil,
2 tablespoons minced ginger,
3 to 5 cloves garlic, minced and
1/2 teaspoons crushed red pepper.

I mixed them together in a container in which I could fit the piece of meat and let it marinate for 3 hours. That piece of meat was uneven, thick in some areas and thin in others - this is a crucial detail to understand the outcome I got cooking this recipe. I borrowed a grill from a friend, warmed it up, and then cooked each side for five minutes. When the meat was ready, I let it stand for 10 minutes, and cut it against the grain. I did everything the recipe called for. That day I also cooked baked potatoes and a salad as side dishes. At that moment, T came into the kitchen, examined the piece of meat and said: "It's a very small piece, we’ll be hungry." I looked at him with my there-is-nothing-to-do face, I asked my guests to pass to the table, and served.

The conversation was so interesting that nobody, except T, complained how raw the meat was ... it was purple! To maintain the flow of the evening and trying to be good hosts, we gave the more cooked pieces to the guests, while we eat, without intending to, an improvised carpaccio. No one talked about the state of the meat, all pretended as if I was the best cook on the planet. I am convinced, though, that everyone was immensely grateful that it was small piece of meat.

Everyone left after much talk and a nice evening, and T and I were left rubbing a sponge against the grill, trying to get off the burned crusts...and starving!

What went wrong? I think the grill pan I borrowed was not appropriate.