Make Ted Allen's grilled skirt steak, duck fat potatoes

Video: Heat up dinner with steak, spicy chimichurri sauce

Open in new window

2. Closed captioning of: Heat up dinner with steak, spicy chimichurri sauce

   Advertise | AdChoices

   >>> this morning in "today's kitchen," what's on the menu? an easy skirt steak with a delicious chimichurri courtesy of the host of chopped ted allen .

   >> the recipe is straight out of his new cookbook called "in my kitchen." should we say congratulations are in order.

   >> thank you.

   >> you just one not one but two james beard awards.

   >> it's really exciting because when you have two of them they clink together in a really pleasant way. they're medals actually and i'm so excited. our judges also i think deserve much much the credit. the show is doing really well.

   >> well, good.

   >> best tv personality , that's pretty --

   >> it was clearly a mistake.

   >> oh, no, no.

   >> on the strength of your courtesy lap.

   >> my animal magnetism .

   >> you have a good courtesy laugh . let's get to our skirt steak first starting off with a great lean cut here.

   >> not too lean. there's a lot of flavor in skirt steak . what's great about skirt steak is that it's just packed with flavor and it's affordable. and it's really tender and juicy. so long as you cook it correctly. you've got to cook this medium rare . it's really good on the grill and grilling season for me is already here.

   >> you probably need to get on this side?

   >> okay. absolutely. the way you cook a skirt steak , medium rare , love to go on the grill, i'm serving it here today with a chimichurri sauce which is a sauce from argentina, so flavorful, so spacy. i'm kicking up the sauce a little bit with roasted jalapeno chilies.

   >> how do you roast them?

   >> it brings out a different kind of flavor. gives it a little bit of char. and you know if you're nervous about how much -- you're going to take these guys, cut them in half and take out the seeds. a lot of the heat is in the seeds and you can scrape those right out. now we've already got some chilies in this blender. so to this the basis for the chimichurri sauce is tons and tons of parsley and cilantro. and it makes for a very vivid, green sauce . beautiful. for serving. and --

   >> what's that?

   >> this is garlic. we're kicking it up a notch with garlic. a little bit of red wine . and what i think really makes the chimichurri great is the tangy, acidity that you get from this red wine vinegar and from some lemon juice . you throw that in there. fire this guy up, you just took an involuntary step back.

   >> i don't know. spills happen around me.

   >> does this have olive oil in it, too?

   >> that's coming up. so you just -- probably about half a cup of collive oil. and that's all you got to do. it's super easy.

   >> that's it. easy.

   >> and you can keep this in the refrigerator for quite awhile, right?

   >> there we go. i think it would be good in the fridge for a couple of days.

   >> yeah.

   >> we have some that's made already. so you take your skirt steak , give it a nice little coat of olive oil . generously salt and pepper it, you've got to season steak really nicely before you serve it. and then when it's finished, the other really critical thing about skirt steak is if you look at --

   >> hmm.

   >> you have to cut it across the grain, it makes it more tender when you're eating it. you notice the grain goes this way so you get in here with your knife on kind of a diagonal, cut against the muscle fibers.

   >> oh, interesting.

   >> and it's a lot easier to chew.

   >> you just said put the chimichurri right on top of it?

   >> yeah, exactly. i think it presents really nicely sort of drizzled across the top.

   >> now duck fat fingerling potatoes. where do you get the duck fat ? i mean obviously from the duck, but --

   >> yes.

   >> you're welcome people at home.

   >> i'll give you another courtesy laugh . it's from the duck.

   >> go on.

   >> where do you buy it?

   >> you can buy it at places like --

   >> the duck fat store?

   >> they sell it at places like whole foods market or if you ever cook duck. ducks live outside where it's cold, they have a thick layer of flat and when you cook a duck breast you really need to render that fat out. score the duck breast, cook it slowly.

   >> the amazing taste of that.

   >> this is what you get. i know it sounds a little decadent and it is a little decadent to cook with duck fat . my mother, i grew up with bacon grease in the refrigerator.

   >> and you turned out fine.

   >> i turned out all right.

   >> so this is one of -- it's an indulgence. if you don't want to use duck fat you could do the same recipe with olive oil or if you really want to be nuts, you can drizzle it with bacon.

   >> you just throw it right on and bake it in there?

   >> toss it with the duck fat .

   >> roast it in the oven?

   >> put your oven at 450, 25 minutes, good, hot oven.

   >> and top with parsley and lemon?

   >> lemon zest .

   >> ted allen , thank you.

   >> well, thank you.

   Show transcript