Does anyone know how to cook London Broil? They had it 2-for-1 at Albertson’s so I picked some up but, despite being from London, I have no idea how to successfully cook it. I figured you would just, you know, broil it, but all the recipes I’ve found online specify that it should be grilled over hot coals, which is far too much trouble.
Does anyone have any tips on making London Broil using the regular oven/broiler combo I have in the kitchen?
Broiling is just upside down grilling (without the smoke, which adds flavor). Any recipe that calls for grilling can also be done with the broiler.
Personally, I prefer searing in a very hot cast iron pan. Take your steak, rub it with vegetable oil, salt, and pepper, put in pan for 4-6 minutes (depending on the thickness of the steak), flip (with tongs, not fork), repeat, remove from heat, let sit for 5-10 minutes (DO NOT skip this step). Serve.
All of this is from the school of Alton.
Beautiful, medium-rare steak. Mmmmm.
“London broil” is usually flank steak, and as such, benefits from an hour or two marinating. Get yourself a heavy-duty plastic ziploc bag. In the bag, put
Mush it all up. It should look absolutely godawful. Put the meat in and mush it around so it’s all covered. Put in the fridge for an hour or two. Take out and drip off most of the marinade. Then cook it like a steak. Grill it, broil it, cast iron pan/oven it, whatever. Slice thinly across the grain.
I like to serve it with my famous roasted cauliflower.
Take 1 head of cauliflower. Clean off the green stuff and stem. SLICE into thin slices. It should look like a cross-section of a brain. Get a cookie sheet and coat with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Put the cauliflower on in a single layer. Bake at 450F for 10 min, flip, and bake for 10 min more. It should be toasty brown and crunchy, like cauliflower fries. If you have white truffle oil, it’s great drizzled on top after cooking. This shit is amazing.
Gary,
London broil’s typically a flank steak; they can be very tough if you don’t use some kind of tenderizing agent, and are too large for pan-cooking. That said, my favorite oven-based flank steak recipe is from Cook’s Illustrated, and goes like this:
Position an oven rack on the lowest position, and, if you’ve got one, stick a pizza stone on top of it. Preheat the oven to 500 for at least thirty minutes or so. You want it to be absolutely incredibly hot.
Meantime, stick a large cast-iron skillet over high heat for three minutes or so. Generously season both sides of the flank steak with salt and pepper. Add the steak to the cast-iron skillet. As soon as steak smokes, about 5 seconds, carefully transfer pan to oven; cook 3 1/2 to 4 minutes, then flip steak and cook until well seared and meat is medium-rare (125 degrees on an instant-read thermometer), 3 1/2 to 4 minutes longer. Transfer steak to cutting board; let rest for 5 minutes. Slice the steak very thinly, on bias, across the grain. Adjust seasoning and serve.
Although I’ve never made London broil, I’ve made lots of dishes using Cook’s Illustrated recipes (or the Perfect Recipe, a book featuring the magazine’s recipes), and always been pleased. Consider Marcus’ recommendation seconded.
You know, Gary starts a thread and calls it “London Broil” and I’m at the point where I don’t even think he’s talking about meat. Whew!
The whole point of london broil is serving the steak on top of thick toast (preferrably garlic toast) otherwise it’s just cheap steak…
CI is the absolute bomb. best $25 i ever spent. i mean, who else is going to tell you the best tasting butter or explain the chemistry of cutting and cooking garlic?
if the recipe comes from them, it is automatically in the circle of trust.
Actually, London Broils that you buy at a grocery store are usually thick cuts of top round, and NOT flank steak per se. Flank steak is more tender. Usually you want to keep it rare in the middle…since it is so thick, that’s not hard.
Get a crockpot for $20 at Wal-Mart, cook it in that. There are all sorts of recipes floating around the web for how to make a London Broil in a crockpot. Once you start cooking roasts, etc. in a crockpot, you’ll never go back to the oven. The meat is so juicy and tender that it practically melts in your mouth.
I make amazing stews in mine, and always cook roasts in it. Very, very easy to do. Impossible to screw up. All you really need to do is toss the meat into the crockpot with seasoning, spices, etc., and just leave it for 4-5 hours on medium-high heat. Or 8 hours or so on low heat. Great, lazy way to cook. Just throw everything together in the morning and leave it till dinner time. Toss in potatoes, onions, carrots, etc., with a few hours to go, if you want veggies. Then, Yum!
And now you’ve got me hungry, Whitta.
Also as good as a crock pot, is a pressure cooker, but in a substantially different way.
Now I’m starving!
Sweet Jesus, if you ever want to eat a bean for the rest of your life, you have to have a pressure cooker. Other than that, they’re not super-useful unless you cook a lot of slow-cooking things, which I rarely have time for, even with the pressure cooker.
Got a good roast recipe in the beast?
H.
Rarely have time for? You can just toss everything into the crockpot and leave it till it’s done. Laziest, easiest way of cooking there is.
Mmm… crockpot. My favorite ribs: one bottle of BBQ sauce, one chopped onion, some lightly broiled ribs. Place in crock put, pull them out 8 hours later and enjoy as the meat drips off the bone into your mouth.
Not sure how this helps with the immediate London Broil problem, though.
Geoff
You’re mistaking effort for time. I can cook like a whirlwind, I just rarely have 2+ hours to cook/monitor/adjust a dish. I know, I know, crockpots are perfectly safe. Still doesn’t mean I like leaving the house with one going.
H.
Stusser, you should name that cauliflower dish “Lenin’s Brain.”
I’ve had all manner of roasts in crockpots and pressure cookers, and I vastly prefer what comes out of the latter. Aside from the improvement in flavor and texure, you people who are saying “a crockpot is best for laziness” are neglecting the fact that you can fuck off playing Civilization alllll day after getting up at the crack of noon, then throw the meat in a pressure cooker at six and be done eating by eight. Now that’s lazy.
The problem with crockpots is that they don’t get hot enough to brown the meat and vegetables before beginning to braise. Browning is essential in every braise, without it the end result is bland. You can get around this by browning the food in a skillet, dumping it into the crockpot, then deglazing the skillet with some wine or stock and adding that liquid to the crockpot also.
You should all try my roasted cauliflower. You have no idea how delicious it is. It’s awesomely delectable!
Stusser’s right: boiled meat is not good. He’s also right that roasted cauliflower is surprisingly good.
You don’t need a crock pot, and you have to use two big pans if you use one (one to brown, and the crock). Get a cast iron dutch oven. The ones from Le Creuset are insanely expensive but the same thing from China is cheap. Mine was CDN$25 (USD$3.47).
Generic recipe:
[ul][li]Season target meat very well with (kosher/coarse) salt and freshly ground black pepper.
[/li][li]Sear meat on all sides over medium-high heat until it’s very well browned.
[/li][li]Remove meat. Add diced onions, carrots, and celery and cook until they start to brown.
[/li][li]Toss in some wine and/or stock and scrub the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon for a bit.
[/li][li]Return meat to pan, cover, and cook over low heat until meat is tender.
[/li][li]Remove meat and pour sauce through a strainer. Return sauce to pan and cook over medium heat until reduced to saucy consistency. Finish with butter if you like.
[/li][li]Adjust seasoning and serve.
[/li][/ul]
This is the basis for everything from the beef stew your mom used to make to Coq au Vin to the $38 braised bison rib at your favorite expensive restaurant. Also, deglazing the pan means the one pan you use will be easy to clean.