Bloody Mary Skirt Steak

This recipe was one of Matt’s infamous “surprises” for me. We had only been dating a few months… maybe. When Matt called me one day and told me that he had a surprise for me and to head over. Well, at this point I had come to realize that with Matt you had no idea if surprise meant to wear a dress or a hard hat. On top of this, the feeling in the pit of my stomach grew stronger with dread when I heard his best friend Dan laughing manically in the back ground.

Dan you must understand is a character, even in our group, which can have a tendency to be made up of quite diverse company, Dan sticks out. Well, Dan would stick out almost anywhere. He is a tall man with a Jew fro and scraggly beard that insist on speaking in Russian a good portion of the time just because he can. A fair amount of the rest of the time is spent speaking German. When a hairy, foreign sounding guy, who spent much of his life in a bathrobe, is laughing manically at the word surprise one tends to step back and examine their life for a moment along with the impending decision.

Here is where I went against my better judgment: I gave into the wishes of my new boyfriend and proceeded to get in my car knowing I was almost certainly making a bad decision.

When I arrived at his place, the two conspirators were in the kitchen and I could smell they had been cooking, although as to what I was clueless.  This deepened my fright of what this “surprise” may be. Matt is a great cook and I trust him implicitly in the kitchen, except when he is around Dan. Dan is know for cooking things that should not be cooked, and mixing things that at the very least should have stayed separate. One staple ingredient that he likes to use in his diet (or at least the diet he like to portray to others for his and/or their amusement) is pickle juice. Yes! Dill pickle juice as a staple ingredient in anything is absurd. Trust me on this one: I have not had any concoction of this nature that was anything I would choose to eat on a regular basis.

At their call, because I feared it was too late to turn around, I went into the kitchen.  Matt then asked me to try a bite of this meat he had on a plate. It did not look too harmful, but just to be on the safe side of things, I asked him, “What’s in it?”

He then responded with, “If I told you it would ruin the surprise.” Now, completely aghast, I refused to consume the item in front of me until I knew what it was because there is no trusting those two when they get together.

Finally, after much begging and pleading on his part, I got my way, and he broke down and confided that it was Bloody Mary skirt steak.  At this point, I have no desire to eat this steak. I don’t like Bloody Marys. In fact, I completely loathe the drink entirely. I pretty much refuse to eat a tomato or anything that is tomato based. However, unfortunately for me, I had made a promise that if Matt told me what it was that I would eat it. So reluctantly, I reached out for a fork and slowly progressed to stab into the meat, trying to delay the inevitable. To enable my disgust at the dish before me even further, when my fork penetrated the thin strip of meat more of the red, strongly tomato-flavored juice ran out of the meat and down the rim of the plate. Adding to my discomfort, Dan had his quirky half smirk on his face full of anticipation. This could only lead me to believe that something terrible was coming because Dan only is excited by the prospect of fooling others for his amusement. Then as if in slow motion, I sliced through the meat with a knife that, despite praying there in the kitchen, was not dull. Soon the parcel was making it way to my mouth of my own volition, and I could not stop. The watchful eyes of amateur chefs were upon me, sucking all the air out of the room in anticipation for this first taste test.

Now I know what you are thinking, “This is where she tells us how good it is, and that we should keep open minds…” Umm, no. The steak was terrible. I mean it was egregious, but one look at their faces told me that this was not another “make Amanda make an icky face” moment but a genuine effort. My conscious would not let me dash their hopes that I would like it. However, over time I convinced them to scale back the lemon juice and put in place rigorous taste testing.  I still had to sit through many of a meal and pick at many of skirt steak I did not care for, but now their little surprise experiment is a hit with all of our guests. Everyone loves it, and so much so that I started boiling down the marinade to make a sauce. This was especially helpful when the marinating times were short. The process to this recipe was a long one, but now I can’t even here the words Bloody Mary and not think steak. The hearty meat flavor and the sting of Bloody Mary just seem to go together.

Bloody Mary Skirt Steak

Serves: 2

Prep Time: 1 hour to overnight

Cook Time: 30 minutes

1lb Skirt Steak

1 can of spicy V8 (12 ounces)

10 shakes (approx. 2 tablespoons) of Worcestershire sauce or to taste

10 shakes (approx. 2 tablespoons) of hot sauce or to taste

the juice of one lemon

1/2 tablespoon of season salt

fresh ground pepper to taste

½ tablespoon of sugar

1. Combine spicy V8, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, lemon juice, season salt, and pepper in gallon ziplock bag.  Place meat in ziplock bag, making sure that marinade covers all the steaks.

Marinate in the refrigerator for a minimum of one hour, but preferably overnight.

2. Fire up the grill or skillet. Place steaks on the grill or skillet and cook to medium rare. 3-4 minutes on each side.

3. While grilling the steaks, take the remaining marinade and place in medium sauce pot over medium high meat. Add ½ tablespoon of sugar (optional). When mixture begins to boil, reduce heat and let simmer. Serve steaks with reduction sauce over them.