Spicy Pineapple Teriyaki Flank Steak

Let's get something straight: There are few things that I enjoy more in life than picnics and barbecues. Any chance to combine them is even better. This lovely meal was pre-meditated grilling combined with impromptu picnic. Does it get any better?



This also serves as an excellent reminder that my memory of recipes is somewhat (read: extremely) unreliable. I ended up with a couple of un-identified greenish-yellow peppers. This made me think of a recipe for flank steak that I just knew was a spicy-fruity-teriyaki in Cooking at the Academy. Fun fact: there is a recipe for flank steak in that book, and it bears precisely no resemblance, aside from the cut of beef, from what I was imagining.

Left to my own devices, I came up with the following:

2 peppers
1 can crushed pineapple
1 1/2" ginger, peeled and grated
1/3 c soy sauce
1/8 c brown sugar, packed

I started by seeding the peppers by cutting around the tops with a thin-bladed knife and pulling out the seeds by the stem:


Next, I sliced the peppers into thin pepper rings, roughly 1/8" thick. I threw those in a large, well-sealing plastic tupperware-thing along with the crushed pineapple, and then grated the ginger into the mixture. Then I added the soy sauce and brown sugar, put the lid on, and gave everything a good shake to mix the ingredients.

At this point, add the flank steak, making sure to bury it well in the marinade. Put the tupperware in the fridge and leave it there for at least a few hours, and up to overnight.

When you are ready to cook, heat up the grill, fish out the flank steak, wipe off any excess marinade, and grill to your heart's content. Keep an eye on the meat so that you get it to whatever level of doneness pleases you. I generally go for a true medium, where it is still pink inside, but is warm throughout.

When your meat is cooked how you like it, pull it off and let it rest for a couple of minutes on a cutting board to let the juices re-distribute and then slice it against the grain. Serve and enjoy.

(Food safety hint: NEVER EAT A MARINADE WITHOUT COOKING IT. If you want to make a sauce from the marinade, strain out the chunks and BOIL the marinade. Would you lick raw hamburger? Then why would you use a marinade as a sauce?)