I never cook steak at home. I always over cook it – no matter how little time I keep it on the grill, it is overdone. I could take a thick ribeye and just walk it past the grill and it is well done.

For Cinco de Mayo I had a couple of pseudo-surprise guests so I had to cook some extra food.  I decided to do a marinated skirt steak.  Since I didn’t have much time for the marinade to do it’s work I had to go for a high intensity flavor marinade.  I started by cutting half a yellow onion into half rings, opened a small can of San Marcos Chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce and cut a half pound of skirt steak in half and placed all of this in a zip top bag.  After making sure the meat was fully covered in the sauce and onion I figured it needed a bit more liquid, so I threw in a splash of olive oil.

Into the fridge this bag goes to stew for a while.  Since the steak is so thin it takes about a minute on each side (on a hot enough grill) and it is done.  Of course, my propane tank was empty — Plan B: indoor grill pan.  Not the best idea.

The pan was HOT. The steak goes in and the cooking Adobo sauce is so peppery the all of my guests started coughing and sneezing. The quick cooking steak still filled the house with this (too) spicy aroma — which lingered for a couple of days.

The steak was cooked pretty well — a bit more than I wanted, but better than I have done in the past.  We just sliced an ate this steak (because I ran out of tortillas — what??), but the intent was to take the sliced steak and put into a tortilla, top with some homemade guacamole or salsa and be in a little bit of heaven.  Next time.

This isn’t a recipe that requires a whole day sitting in the marinade — I think as little as an hour in the fridge provides some great flavor. This is a great week night meal – either throw it all together and let it sit in the fridge while you are at work or do it right when you get home.  A great spicy meal!

Second version of this, including boiled red potatoes, arugula and tomato salad with the adobo marinated skirt steak.

How often do you cook red meat at home? Do you marinate or just focus on the beef flavor?  What is your favorite marinade? Do you think chicken would be good with this adobo sauce and peppers, hmmmm?

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