Fire up the grill and dig into steaks on Memorial Day

Video: BBQ bash! Grill this sizzlin’ hanger steak

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2. Closed captioning of: BBQ bash! Grill this sizzlin’ hanger steak

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   >>> good morning. in "today's kitchen" we are grillin' and chillin' to kick off your memorial day weekend . kenny callahan, the executive chef of blue smoke here in new york city shows us how to wow your crowd. kenny , good to see you.

   >> good to see you, al.

   >> the great thing about what you're doing, you can do it outdoors or if your weather is not so great you can do it indoors.

   >> absolutely.

   >> now i hadn't heard this. this is called -- this cut is called the butcher's steak?

   >> yeah, it's actually a hanger steak . and they call it the butcher's steak because the butchers used to keep this for themselves and sell the rest of the cut.

   >> uh-huh.

   >> it's a great cut of meat.

   >> but it is not that tender. it needs a marinade.

   >> it usually needs to be marinated. this is a whole hanger steak here. you need to -- what i would do is tell a butcher to trim it up for you. it has a little bit of a vein in the middle. so it's kind of inedible. you want to cut it down. this one is a cleaned up one, just this piece and this piece.

   >> without that stuff in the middle.

   >> exactly.

   >> so what goes into the marinade?

   >> basically rosemary, thyme, sage.

   >> right.

   >> we take the steaks, a little bit of olive oil . a little bit of -- oh, sorry. a little bit of crushed garlic. one or two cloves in there. here i have a couple that are already done.

   >> and how long will you marinate that?

   >> you can do this up to two days.

   >> oh, okay.

   >> up to two days is fine. here i have a couple that are already marinated. just taking them out. just want to season them. if you help me out there.

   >> that would be great.

   >> a little bit of black pepper . go right on a nice, hot grill.

   >> and now do you want to cook this over a high heat quickly?

   >> high heat. high heat. i'm a big fan of high heat.

   >> like the high heat. you and the yankees. well the yankees not so much.

   >> not these days.

   >> okay. anyway so you get this on. how long on each side?

   >> probably about two to three minutes. you just really want to touch it. if it's feeling -- a good rule of thumb , this is rare, this is mode yum, this is well done.

   >> all right. you just signal for --

   >> okay.

   >> exactly.

   >> how a salad.

   >> salad, this is a lovely little salad here. we're grilling some corn. we have some awesome cherry tomatoes.

   >> right.

   >> here i have some already grilled corn. some red unions.

   >> yeah.

   >> sugar snap peas. roasted peppers. just going to toss this all in there together.

   >> it's really colorful, too.

   >> beautiful. this is the perfect type, memorial day . spring and summer are kind of molding together.

   >> right.

   >> a little bit of olive oil . a little salt and vinegar.

   >> nice.

   >> salt and pepper .

   >> then you just toss this?

   >> toss it up.

   >> bring this back here. you can show us how to slice this thing up. now that you're done.

   >> yes. want to help me out there?

   >> you bet.

   >> you want to cut this against the grain, how come?

   >> exactly. the grain is the fabric that holds the muscle together. so you can see this here. see the grain clearly like that. so want to cut exactly 90 degrees across the grain.

   >> nice. oh, yeah. that's what i'm talking about. and you brought some sides. you've got some great corn bread . a little asparagus. coleslaw. this is more of a vinegar based.

   >> vinegar base. toasted sesame seed coleslaw. here i have a nice little sauce with shallots, garlic, dijon mustard .

   >> don't even need the sauce, kenny . this is fantastic. can you tell? thanks so much. perfect memorial day forecast and food. thanks so much, kenny .

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