Thursday September 02, 2010

Recipes aren't roadmaps, they're just suggestions of routes you might take when you find yourself in the kitchen. It's the detours that are most satisfying part of cooking, the paths that you find on your own.

That's why this note, from a professor at the University of Toronto, made me smile so broadly. It just came in, but I thought I'd share it with you.

Dear Ruth: I really love the Gourmet book & it is a constant resource for me now. I wanted to say that the skirt steak with black pepper recipe (I don't put that much pepper on when I make it :)) works very well with boneless, skinless chicken thighs with the leftover chicken making a great pizza (Jamie Oliver's tomato sauce with dried peppers & fresh basil, baby king mushrooms & Asiago cheese).

The grilled onions in balsamic vinegar that go with the skirt steak recipe are now a house favorite & have now found there way into green beans (a variation on Mario Batali's green beans & onions from his Multo Gusto cookbook).

FYI, here's my simplified version of Maggie Ruggiero's recipe:

Grilled London Broil with Red Onions

Stir together 4 cloves of garlic, 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 1/2 teaspoons salt, and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper. Add 1 1/2 pounds of London broil or skirt steak to the mixture and marinate in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours.Just before grilling bring to room temperature, remove steak from marinade, pat dry and throw the marinade out.

Peel 3 small red onions, but leam them intact and cut lengthwise into 3/4-inch-thick wedges. Insert a wooden pick horizontally through each wedge (to keep it intact while grilling), and marinate in mixture of 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, 2 tablespoons of olive oil with a bit of salt and pepper shaken in.

Grill steak about 10 to 12 minutes over a medium fire. REmove and allow to stand while you grill the onions for 6 minutes or so.

Cut steak crosswise into thin slices, holding knife at a 45-degree angle. This will serve 4 people.