what's your beef?

​In a recent weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal, there was a recipe for charred romaine with flank steak and olive tapenade. The recipe appeared in the column called “Slow Fast Food” with a recipe by Chef Caroline Glover. Ms. Glover’s owns the restaurant Annette in Aurora, Colorado. What appealed to me in this recipe was the cut of beef and the simplicity of the recipe.

The flank steak in this recipe is merely season with salt and pepper and grilled 5-6 minutes per side. One of the things that makes this recipe quite good is the accompanying charred romaine lettuce that has a nice smokey flavor and the roasted shallot dressing that goes over the romaine. 

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Besides the flank steak, you’ll need 2 shallots, olive oil, Dijon mustard, both the juice and zest from 2 lemons, Kalamata olives, green olives, parsley, mint and romaine lettuce. As my husband and I aren’t fans of mint, I used basil instead. The shallots are part of the dressing that goes over the grilled romaine lettuce. The shallots are roasted in the oven with a bit of water and olive oil and later mixed in a blender with additional olive oil, Dijon mustard, lemon juice and salt and pepper.

I thought I had green olives in my refrigerator, however, I was mistaken. I substituted Gaeta olives instead. The olives are pitted and chopped and then mixed with chopped parsley, chopped mint (basil in my case), olive oil and a bit of lemon zest. The tapenade had plenty of salt from the olives, but I did a few grinds of black pepper.

The flank steak is grilled about 5-6 minutes on each side. While that was cooking, I cooked half the romaine; when done, I dressed the greens with the dressing, a bit of lemon juice and salt. After grilling, I let the steak rest a few minutes and then cut it across the grain. For serving, I placed the olive tapenade alongside the steak. The combination of flavors for this dish was amazing. The olive tapenade was a different accompaniment to the steak. I liked the combination of flavors, a little salt, a bit herbaceous from the basil and smokiness on the charred romaine. I’ve made grilled romaine before, but the shallot dressing is a bit different and tasty. Overall, a nice addition to my rotation of recipes for grilled flank steak. The recipe takes approximately 45 minutes to prepare, which even makes it a good weeknight meal. Enjoy!