Gingered Beef Sandwich with Caramelized Onions

I had a real craving for beef the other day, so my son and I traveled to our local grocery store and browsed the beef aisle. We talked about what he wanted, and he responded with ‘plain’ and ‘on the grill’. You have to love those types of responses from a seven year old. Plain equates to salt and pepper, which is just plain delicious and how I like my steak anyway, but I was in search of something else. I wanted to do something different, so I chose the flank steak, and a couple of nice bolillo rolls.

My goal was to steer away from the standard, I mean plain, grilled steak and to make a really killer sandwich. As I inspected my ingredients, and sauces, I came up with a gingered beef sandwich that is to die for. As my kids truly enjoyed their plain steak, my wife and I were taken to heaven with this super tender, and flavor packed steak sandwich. Oh, did I mention the caramelized red onions?

Ingredients:

• 1 lb of flank steak
• 3 tbsp minced ginger
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 tsp tabasco sauce
• dash of worcestshire sauce
• 1/3 cup of soy sauce
• 1/3 cup of red wine
• 1 lime, zested and juiced
• 2 Bolillo rolls, sliced in half
• 1 large red onion, thinly sliced
• 4 tbsp unsalted butter
• 2 slices of Swiss cheese, optional
• large ziplock bag

Begin adding your flank steak to the ziplock bag. To a bowl, mix in the remaining ingredients. Pour into the bag, seal, and massage the marinade into the steak. Place in the refrigerator for up to four hours. About 3o minutes before you are ready to grill, remove the beef from the refrigerator and let it come close to room temperature. During this time, heat a large skillet to medium heat, and add 3 tablespoon of butter and all of the sliced onions. Bring to a medium-low heat, and begin to caramelize the onions. This process will take about 30 minutes. Stir about every 10 minutes or so.

Next, bring your grill to a medium-high heat and lube the grates with a bit of oil. You can do this by adding some oil to some paper towel, and use your tongs to apply the oil.

Take the beef out of the bag, reserving your marinade, and place it on the grill. We are only going to cook this for about eight minutes. After about a minute on each side, flip over, and brush on some of the marinade. Continue this process, every minute.  It is important to not overcook this cut of steak as it will become very tough, you just want it just about medium, which comes out super tender and delicious.

Remove the steak from the grill and let it rest on a plate for about five minutes. As the meat rests, use 1 tablespoon of the butter, and lightly butter the bottom of the sliced rolls. Place on the grill, one butter side down,  the other topped with the Swiss cheese, just until lightly browned, being careful not to burn the rolls.

Now it is time to slice the beef. The second most important note here is that you have to slice the beef across the grain. This shortens the muscle fibers and makes it much easier to chew.

Now you are ready to plate. Take the rolls off the grill. Stack the slices of beef on top of the melted cheese and top with caramelized onions.

This sandwich is really delicious and goes to show that if you have the basics laying around your kitchen, that you can come up with a marinade that will rock any type of meat. This was a real winner, and will be made again and again. I hope you enjoy.