There’s a reason chef Bobby Flay is known as Food Network ‘s “resident grill master.” Aside from being the executive chef and sometimes owner at numerous grill-centric restaurants over the years — think Mesa Grill, Bobby Flay Steak, and Bobby’s Burger Palace — he’s also published a collection of […]
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There’s a reason chef Bobby Flay is known as Food Network‘s “resident grill master.” Aside from being the executive chef and sometimes owner at numerous grill-centric restaurants over the years — think Mesa Grill, Bobby Flay Steak, and Bobby’s Burger Palace — he’s also published a collection of cookbooks and hosted several TV shows that will help any home cook improve their grilling skills.
If your Labor Day plans include the grill but something classier than a burger, take a look at some of the classic steak recipes Flay has crafted over the years. You can always go simple with salt and pepper and a good cut of steak, but the culinary icon offers some options to get creative for the holiday.
Flay’s grilled ribeye steak topped with blue cheese and onion jam
One of the first options for grilling is a classic ribeye, featured on Grill It! With Bobby Flay. The show started airing in 2008 and ran for three seasons, wherein Flay would grill with a longtime fan and prepare their favorite dish — without knowing what it was ahead of time.
In this recipe, Flay kept the seasonings on the steak itself extremely simple: Salt, pepper, and thyme are all that go into the rub. The accompanying flavors come from toppings, including blue cheese and a vidalia onion jam that Flay said would be “acidic and sweet at the same time.”
A YouTube video shows Flay’s technique for seasoning the steak before grilling it, including putting on a generous dose of salt. “It looks like a lot of salt, but Kevin brought me a really thick steak so I want to make sure the seasoning goes all the way through,” Flay said.
Flay adds just a bit of cream to his blue cheese to add a smoother texture to the crumbles, an idea we might borrow the next time we fire up the grill. Flay didn’t publish this exact recipe from the show, but he shared a similar recipe using a New York strip steak on the Food Network’s site.
Flank steak with balsamic BBQ glaze
On another segment of Grill It! the famed chef creates a custom BBQ sauce that incorporates a lot of familiar ingredients (including ketchup, onions, garlic, and Worcestershire sauce) but then also adds elements like ancho chili powder and reduced balsamic vinegar. The reduced vinegar is the star of the sauce, as reducing it gives it the perfect balance of acidic sweetness that will make your tastebuds perk up.
Flay noted that despite flank steak being a more affordable cut of beef, the steak can be incredibly flavorful. For this recipe, he coats it in a generous portion of salt and pepper, which he said will give proper seasoning to the meat but also help it to form a flavorful seared crust when it hits the grill.
As with the ribeye above, Flay said he’ll only flip the steak once. “Direct heat is your friend, especially if you’re trying to get something nice and crusty on the outside,” he said in the clip above. If you give in to the urge to flip the steaks more than once, Flay said the steak won’t form that crust and will instead look more like you boiled it — a common grilling mistake.
In this iteration, the celebrity chef sliced the steak very thinly and piled it on cheesy baguettes, with a dollop of the balsamic sauce on top. You can find the full recipe at the Food Network’s site.
Skirt steak with red and green chimichurri
If you want to have steak without breaking the bank, skirt steak can be a good option, according to Flay. It’s flavorful, especially when grilled, but won’t cost you as much as a filet mignon or ribeye. There are three tips for making the most of a skirt steak, according to the grill master: First, marinate it in something incredibly flavorful. Second, grill it to the right temperature (medium rare to medium, per Flay) to avoid overcooking it. And third, cut it against the grain so it’s perfectly tender to eat.
In a segment of Bobby Flay’s Barbecue Addiction, the chef creates a green chimichurri (a sauce originating in Argentina and Uruguay that traditionally uses parsley as a main ingredient) marinade for the steak. Flay’s herbs start with parsley and fresh oregano, along with his addition of mint and other aromatics. The steak marinates in the green sauce for several hours, is grilled, and then served with a red chimichurri that gets its color and heat from chipotle peppers in adobo, along with parsley and other ingredients. The recipe on the Food Network’s site has five stars from readers.
Flay’s stuffed flank steak marinated in red wine
If you’re looking to take the presentation up a notch, consider this recipe for a stuffed flank steak. In one of Flay’s earliest cooking shows, Boy Meets Grill, he showed viewers how to butterfly the thin steak to create a pocket of sorts, which he filled with prosciutto, fontina cheese, and fresh basil.
The steak is first marinated for several hours in cabernet, shallots, and a few other ingredients, then stuffed and grilled for a few minutes on each side. Flay also creates a sauce using red wine, honey, shallots, and peppercorns which reduces to a glaze-like consistency. Find the recipe on the Food Network site.
