Marinated Hanger Steak

One of our favorite cuts of beef is the Hanger Steak, so-called because it 'hangs' from the diaphragm. It has all of the beefiness of rib-eye at a much lower price. Due to the coarser structure of the meat, it also takes well to marinades, and that's what we decided to do this past weekend. I used a recipe from Serious Eats as a baseline, but I added some Arbol peppers, since that's apparently what I was doing that weekend.

One of the reasons hanger steaks are as cheap as they are is that they're a bit of a pain to trim. There's typically a lot of excess fat and silverskin you need to remove before cooking. And you need to remove it! I tried it without once, and it wasn't nearly as good. Not to mention that if you're grilling, all that fat will cause massive flare-ups. After trimming, you'll see a thick sinew running down the middle of the steak. You need to cut the steak in half to remove; it's too tough to eat. I always recommend cooking steaks medium rare, but with hanger, it's almost a necessity. Any less, and it'll taste mushy.

I enjoyed the recipe below. I marinated for about four hours, and that probably wasn't quite enough. There was some spiciness from the pepper, for example, but with a few more hours, there could have been a better level. Also, I should have used some indirect heat to finish up the thicker bits. But it was still really good, and I look forward to cooking more hanger in the future. Recipe after the jump.


Ingredients

2 pounds hanger steak, trimmed of excess fat and silverskin
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons coarsely ground pepper
4 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 large shallot, thinly sliced (about 1/2 cup)

2 dried arbol chilis
Kosher salt

Procedures
Place hanger steaks in a shallow baking dish or plate and rub with olive oil. Add peppercorns, garlic cloves, parsley, and shallot, and 1 tablespoon salt and rub until seasonings are evenly coating surface of steak. Transfer to a plastic zipper-lock bag and seal, squeezing out as much air as possible. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to overnight. Grill.