Roy Choi's Carne Asada

[The Nid Hog]

Roy Choi is one of the guru's of Mexican-Asian mash-ups in LA. The New York Times printed a recipe for his carne asada marinade on Friday. There's a good link to Choi's blog, where you can find a nice salsa verde recipe too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/m...ue-blends-mexico-and-korea.html?smid=pl-share

I picked up the ingredients for the marinade on Friday afternoon after I read the paper. When I was cooking dinner on Friday night, I blended up the marinade and put about three or four pounds of skirt steak (two pieces--one a little over 2 lbs, one a little over a pound) into a tupperware tub, filled it with the juice and put it in the fridge. When I went to the fridge to get something, I'd check the meat to make sure that it was completely submerged.

Saturday afternoon, I got a good fire going in the grill (lump charcoal from Trader Joe's, started in my trusty chimney). Pulled the steaks out of the marinade, and grilled them up along with green onions and corn tortillas. Served it with salsa verde and a selection of beer from Highland Brewing in Asheville, NC. Not bad if I do say so myself.

One change I made to the recipe: I blended up all the other ingredients before adding the beer. The liquid from the oranges and the limes was enough to produce a nice mix. I ladled out about half the mix into a mixing bowl and added half of a 40 of PBR to it. I put the rest of the mix into a ziploc bag and froze it for next weekend. I'll add the beer to it then. I used the recipe from Choi's blog, which makes quite a bit. If you use the recipe that the NYTimes article is linked to, it doesn't make quite so much.

 

[The Nid Hog]

Here's the Times' version of the recipe:

Adapted from Roy Choi, Riding Shotgun, Los Angeles.

Ingredients

• 2 jalapeños
• 1 medium tomato, cored and cut into quarters
• 1 small yellow onion or 1/4 large one, peeled and cut into quarters
• 5 cloves garlic
• 2 tablespoons white granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup ancho chili powder
• 1 tablespoon ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup kosher salt
• 1/2 large bunch cilantro, leaves and stems, well rinsed
• 1/3 cup fresh-squeezed orange juice (about 1 orange)
• 3 tablespoons fresh-squeezed lime juice (1 or 2 limes)
• 1/4 cup mirin
• 1 12-ounce can (1 1/2 cups) Budweiser or other lager beer
• 2 pounds skirt steak, cut into 10-inch sections
• 2 tablespoons olive oil.

Preparation

1.Preheat the broiler. Place the jalapeños on a cookie sheet or in a skillet with an ovenproof handle, and put them under the broiler until their skins begin to blacken and bubble. (You can also do this by putting the peppers directly over a burner on your stove or on a gas grill.) Pull the stems and seeds from the jalapeños and discard them; skin the peppers and put them into a food processor.
2.Add the tomato, onion, garlic, sugar, ancho chili powder, black pepper and salt to the bowl of the machine, and pulse to combine. Add the cilantro, the fruit juices, mirin and beer. Process again until smooth.
3.Transfer the marinade to a large, nonreactive bowl and submerge the steak in it. Cover and place in refrigerator for at least four hours or overnight.
4.Build a fire in your grill. If using a gas grill, turn all burners to high
5.When all coals are covered with gray ash and the fire is hot (you can hold your hand 6 inches over the grill for only a few seconds), remove steaks from marinade, drizzle with olive oil and placeon the grill directly over the coals and cook until deeply seared, turning a few times, approximately 10 minutes for medium-rare. Remove steaks from the grill and allow to rest a few minutes. Slice against the grain into thin strips and serve with warm corn tortillas, pico de gallo (recipe follows), grilled scallions, whatever you like.

 

[Sullybob]

Thanks, I'm always on the hunt for a good carne asada recipe. I'll have to give this a try.

 

[Argonaut]

Sounds great, I'll have to give it a go.

 

[Luc]

Looks great mate!

 

[LegendofVogel]

Anything with large meat hunks and PBR is already a winner in my book, but this recipe is downright epic looking. I will have to try this soon.

 

[Prince]

That marinade would make my shoe taste good.

 

[Omak]

Does it taste like beer?

 

[thebikingengineer]

I tried this out last night and it was spectacular! I've got another batch marinating right now and I'm looking forward to it a lot. The beer flavor doesn't really come through past the chile powder, jalapeno, and tomato.

The recipe makes WAY more marinade than you need so I would recommend doubling the marinade recipe and quadrupling the steak, you'll be happy you did.

 

[The Nid Hog]

I made it again this weekend when I had a bunch of friends over and it turned out great. This time, I made the pico de gallo too. It was excellent--basically what you would expect, but it gets its heat from a big spoonful of gochujang (Korean chili paste).

 

[Luc]

I made it again this weekend when I had a bunch of friends over and it turned out great. This time, I made the pico de gallo too. It was excellent--basically what you would expect, but it gets its heat from a big spoonful of gochujang (Korean chili paste).

I hope you took some pictures! Did you?

 

[Austin]

I hope you took some pictures! Did you?

Nid, it did not happen unless you can prove it with pics pal.