I love London broil. I improvised the marinade but this is based on my dad’s recipe.
1 “London Broil”
1 cup oil, preferably olive oil
½ cup vinegar, in this case mostly red wine vinegar with a few shots of some nice ginger infuse vinegar I had
¼ cup soy sauce
As much franks as you like
½ cup some kind of alcohol, preferably strong. I used a mix of vermouth and gin.
The thing with “London Broil” is that it originally described a method of preparation rather than a cut of meat. Things sold as such are often a wide variety of lean steaks. This is important as the preparation requires that you know which way the grain of the meat runs, which can actually be a bit tricky to find. If you can’t figure it out, ask your butcher, but usually it is cut in such a way that it makes it a bit obvious.
Submerge your steak in the marinade, preferably in a sealed bag with the air squeezed out. My dad does this for about 2 hours. I didn’t do the full time, but I think that it is a good idea if you have the time.
While it is marinating, find a broiling pan. This is a pan that is slotted to allow drippings to, well, drip. When the meat is almost done marinating place the pan in the oven and turn on the broiler, with the rack placed relatively high, though maybe not mere inches from the heat.
When the oven has had a few minutes to heat up, get your meat out of the marinade and slap it on the hot broiling pan and sprinkle with pepper and salt. You should leave it in five minutes per side per inch. My meat was about an inch and a half thick and I left it for only 6 minutes per side. It was maybe a little underdone. I like rare meat so I just left it as is, but if you want a nice crispy exterior it’d be better to follow the directions to the letter, in this case more like 7 ½ minutes per side. If you like things extra crispy, try brushing the meat with honey.
Now this is important. First, let the meat rest. Conventional wisdom says ten minutes. It really is key. I left it just five minutes and it made a world of difference; go for the full ten if you can stand it. The second vital thing is the slicing. The cuts sold as London broil tend to be lean and fibrous. By keeping the meat very rare and slicing the meat thinly, perpendicular to the grain, it ensures that the muscle fibers are clipped short, and therefore the meat is tender instead of stringy. The classic London broil is cut at a 45 degree angle to the board. This is not strictly necessary per se. what is necessary is that it be 90 degrees to the grain. Most cuts sold as London Broil are prepared in such a way that the only way to cut perpendicular to the grain is to go for the 45 degree angle, but be aware that this isn’t necessarily the case. Again, if you aren’t sure, ask your butcher, or just experiment, dragging your friends and relatives along for the ride, until you get it right. Like me.
For good slicing equipment is really key. You want a good slicing knife that will cut the fibers without ripping or crushing the meat. I have often found that a good bread knife works very well for this, and Alton Brown swears by electric knives. However I recently discovered a very nice, very care-worn 8in filleting knife in my mom’s kitchen that took an amazingly sharp blade with only a little encouragement from my sharpening steelpenis. I tried it on the meat after getting a bit frustrated with the house’s newest and shittiest bread knife, and was very pleasantly surprised. If you have a good, think filleting knife, and you can get it sharp, the thinness and slicing power will more than make up for the lack of tearing action. This may be a good way to go.
A nicely made and sliced London Broil is ridiculously versatile, and if there are only one or two diners will last you for several days if you incorporate it into wider meals. It is also ridiculously cheap. I paid six bucks for something like a two pound cut, by far the cheapest in the store and it was not for lack of quality. The beef was flavorful and tender when properly prepared.
For this first meal of Broil I ate it with shredded cabbage and lettuce with franks over rice which had been drizzled with toasted sesame oil, salt, and pepper.
Read the next entry for what I did with the leftovers. Wahahahhahaa.
