In the middle of the resort was a taco stand that served what I now know are called "street tacos." They are amazing in their simplicity: corn tortillas, topped with fajita meat, diced onion, cilantro, and that's it. They were absolutely delicious and I ate so much of those over that trip I felt embarrassed.

I've often wanted to try to recreate this at home, but skirt steak flummoxes me. I either overcook or undercook it. Or it's stupidly chewy.
I've decided to revisit this and see how close I can get. Tonight was experiment number one: a piece of inside skirt steak seasoned with just salt. This was to be my baseline. (A great deal of skirt steak recipes are marinated.)
It came out better than I expected. I got my cast iron pan up to 500-525 F and after a dash of avocado oil, placed the steak in the pan.
Ninety seconds later, I flipped. Decent crust, I think, for my first time doing this.
After an additional ninety seconds, I pulled it off to rest for a moment while I heated up the corn tortillas.
I then cut the steak into 1/2" cubes and put them in the tacos, topping with white onion and cilantro.
The steak was a bit rarer than I would have liked, basically on the rare side of medium-rare. I can see why people want to take this cut of meat to medium. When rare, it is chewy, even in 1/2" cubes. (The more well-done pieces were not chewy at all, but they were....well, well-done.)
So the next iteration is to marinate the remaining half of the skirt steak (soy sauce, lime juice, oregano) overnight and cook it slightly longer, perhaps two minutes a side and see how that works out.
Oh, here's the plating of the first iteration. Even with the chewy bits, it was very good.

Comment