Steak Monterrey

Today’s post is the final in a series of 3 flat iron steak recipes sponsored by the good folks at Certified Steak and Seafood. In case you missed the first 2, you can check them out here and here.

One of the Mr.’s favorite dishes at a local Mexican restaurant is their Chicken Monterrey. (Yes, he gets to eat chicken on occasion. It’s just usually not at home.) Of course, being the beef advocate that I am, I believed there was no reason you couldn’t make the same dish — strips of chicken covered in a spicy tomatillo salsa and melted cheese — with beef instead and make it better.

The problem is, most tomatillo salsas aren’t spicy enough for our tastes. So, I set out to make my own. I spent a good deal of time researching and brainstorming until I finally came up with something I thought would work. Now, if you don’t like a lot of spice, you could definitely adjust this recipe to suit your own tastes or use a bottled version. But here’s how I made mine:

1 pound fresh tomatillos

4 jalapeño peppers, including spines and seeds

2 Serrano peppers, including spines and seeds

1 habanero pepper

5 cloves of garlic

Lime juice

1 lid vegetable oil

1 lid vinegar

1/8 cup water

Sea salt and white pepper to taste

Start by peeling and washing the tomatillos. Cut them in halves and place them cut side down on a baking sheet. Broil for 5 to 7 minutes.

While they are broiling, wash the peppers and cut into chunks suitable for adding to a food processor. Peel/smash the garlic.

Add the tomatillos, peppers and garlic to the food processor. Add liquid ingredients. (I use about 2 squirts of lime juice.) Chop in food processor until it’s the desired consistency. Pour into a Tupperware-type container, stir in salt and pepper and move to refrigerator to cool. Salsa will be good for several days and the extra is great with chips or other Mexican-style dishes.

Now, fast forward to dinner time. You’ll need:

Flat iron steaks, seasoned with garlic pepper or fajita seasoning

Mexican blend cheese

Tomatillo salsa

Grill the flat iron steaks to desired doneness. That’ll be about 7 minutes per side for medium rare if you’re using a gas grill. Since you’ll be sticking them under the broiler briefly to melt the cheese later, you may even consider taking them off a minute or 2 sooner than usual.

Remove the steaks from the grill and allow to rest for about 3- to 5- minutes.

Slice steaks.

Add tomatillo salsa and plenty of cheese on top and broil just long enough to melt the cheese.

It’ll look like this: