How to Make Skirt Steak Fajitas with Jeff Mauro _ The Kitchen _ Food Network

My extra juicy skirt steak fajitas .

And I'm gonna show you guys a cool , easy trick .

That'll give you that sizzling .

Wow Factor you can do right at home .

Starting with some great skirt steak right here , Jeffrey .

You love this stuff .

I love it .

When you go to the butcher , when you go to the grocery store , it is imperative .

You ask for outside skirt steak , not the inside skirt , outside is way more tender , way more , more herbal , just succulent beefy , but the inside skirt can get a little chewy .

So ask for this , right ?

But of course , like you , you take that bite of that sizzling fajita at a restaurant and every bite is juicy and full of marinade .

So let's start with the marinade here .

I have some olive oil we're gonna add to this , this little restaurant secret to a marinade that you wouldn't expect in a Mexican dish .

Soy sauce .

Yeah .

Yeah .

So some fresh lime juice , Jeffrey , can you help me with my peppers right there ?

How do you want a , just in a nice thicker strips , right ?

Not thick but like , you know , half a quarter inch strips cut of and a nice red bell pepper and some onions .

I'll ask for you in a bit .

So we got the soy sauce in there .

Some cumin , some chili powder , some fresh lime juice and some salt .

We're gonna whisk this up .

I got a zipper top bag here .

We're gonna pour that directly in the bag , but we are going to reserve some of this marinade for a little trick later .

Ok ?

And that has the oil in there and everything .

Remember the soy sauce just a little bit .

The rest can go in a zipper top bag .

Now we're gonna take that beautiful outside skirt steak and this has been cut into thirds .

So it's just easier to manage right .

This way , you can kind of cook it appropriately .

But look at that beautiful marbling into the marinade about 30 minutes in the fridge up to two hours , ok ?

Move it around in that bag and get the air out and just make sure you move it all around , put it in the fridge and what you wanna do after marinating it again .

30 minutes , two hours , take it out , dry it , put it on a wire rack , sheet pan in the fridge for up to two hours to help dry it out .

That's another restaurant secret trick .

That's how you get that char on there without a grill without charcoals all done in that cast iron .

But that's what it looks like after drying out after marinating , right .

We're gonna hit it with just a little more salt .

I have a , a cast iron skillet going right here , piping hot .

You can see the wisps of smoke coming off it now , then , you know , it's ready .

We're just gonna hit it with just a little salt and it is going right in that pan on the top side down .

That's gonna be the driest .

So , in these three sections right here , press it down once and just let it rip for a couple of minutes , right .

We'll do two at a time here .

Keep that one for later .

Again .

A whole skirts cake can feed four people .

At least .

That's the beauty of this is , we're fortifying it .

We're bulking it up with these lovely peppers , which I'm gonna throw in there .

So this is the leftover fat and the render farmed and all that stuff in this uh cast iron right here .

So what we're gonna do is throw the onions in there , uh Beautifully , look at that beautifully even poblanos and a lot of times it's just red bell peppers , green bell peppers , yellow , but I like the flavor that the poblano brings a little extra spice .

You cook the steaks in that pan , right ?

And that's a leftover fat in the steak .

That's a leftover fat and oil and uh you know , all the little juicy fond bits , right .

We're gonna hit this pretty hard .

We want a nice char on there , but you don't want to like turn them into mush .

Right ?

You want them have a little , uh , you know , little chew to them and this is what it looks like .

You wanna turn that on .

Is that on Jeffrey ?

Let , get that thing screaming .

I got my sizzle platter ready to go .

I got my rested steak and we're gonna cut this now .

A lot of times you go to the restaurants and they cut it with the grain , which I don't like .

You shouldn't do that .

Even though it's kind of , if you follow the striations of the meat , it's like almost counterintuitive to cut a fajita like this .

But you should cut it like you would a strip steak or a , a rib eye .

So what I can do is cut those long sections in half and then kind of just go diagonally and you wanna cook this to medium .

I think medium rare skirt steak can get a little chewy .

I think medium is perfect .

I agree with you , Jeff for once , but you gotta have that charm in there for you , Jeff .

Yeah , please go ahead .

All right .

Look at that .

Can you see that ?

This is a shout out to my favorite Mexican .

I love my neighborhood called Maria's and the bra boys that been running them for 30 years and they're mom Maria .

And it's like the typical place where you can't even hear yourself talk half the time because of the sizzling fajitas coming out of the kitchen .

I love it .

All right .

That's looking very good .

Right .

We're gonna season that so colorful .

Right .

Right .

A little salt and pepper .

Our steak is sliced and that's all you want .

You want some life in those peppers .

Still some color .

Oh , yeah .

Look at that .

00 , yeah .

You gotta be all right .

It's time , it's time to play .

Now again , if you're searing for a table at home , by all means serve it directly in the cast iron here .

No need to look at you see him sizzling .

Now you asked how do you get that sizzle to happen right before they serve it right ?

Because it's always super pipe and hot .

There's a little trick and that's why we reserved that marinade a little bit ago , but I like to kind of keep it just like that , right ?

So the peppers are still cooking on the bottom , but you're not over cooking the meat since we rested that we're gonna shake up that leftover marinade and right before we bring it to the table , we hit it with the sizzled sauce .

You ready to go , Jeff , let's go some information .

Oh , we got a little table side service .

I expect a large .

Yes .

Yes .

6 ft .

If we ordered them .

Beautiful ladies , please do not touch the sizzling hot cast iron skillet .

It is very warm .

I love the process of building the fajita when you get it .

Yes , of course one you gotta have the , uh , you know , either whole or sliced pickled jalapenos and carrots and onions .

How is that ?

Can I reach over ?

Taste exactly .

Like any tex-mex style restaurant ?

Well , here we go .

You cut it right .

So when you bite into it you get what you bit off .

Do you know what I'm saying ?

Not the entire strip of the fajita .

I know my friends in San Antonio would tear this right up , man .

It's tender , it's juicy and it's sizzling .