The Flank Steak Repeater

Last weekend we had our friends Deb and Dave over for dinner and since they looked after our cats while we were away this summer (and live nowhere close to our house) I wanted to prepare something really special for them as a thank you dinner.  After much thought, I decided to do a tasting style dinner on a variant of a surf and turf, Canadian themed. 

So here was the planned menu for the night:

Canadian Surf and Turf à la Casa Manuel

First Course

Wild Pacific Coho Salmon, planked on maple with a maple Dijon glaze, accompanied with some local greens
Wine Pairing – 2010 Villa Canlungo Pinot Grigio 

Second Course

Marinated Alberta AAA Flank Steak served with mashed PEI potatoes
Wine Pairing – 2008 Ringbolt Cabernet Sauvignon 

Dessert

Grilled Bananas with a honey rum glaze and vanilla ice cream
Wine Pairing – 2007 Jackson Triggs Cabernet Franc Ice Wine 

That was the plan, but we had to make a few variations on game day as I’d planned on grilling some asparagus for the “local greens” portion of the first course but the local grocery store was out.   Thankfully Kelly jumped into action and prepared some wilted spinach thing.  It was ok. ;)  As well, everyone was out of maple planks (being so late in BBQ season) so I had to revert to cedar, and bought about a dozen planks to get me through the winter.  I ended up doing a repeat of my earlier salmon dinner that I prepared when I was in the dog house, if you’re curious of the recipe.  

I chose the Pinot Grigio as I read it goes well with seafood, but mostly because the bottle had a wiener dog on the label.  I'd had it before and remembered it being tasty so I figured it would be good!!  I was not disappointed.

For the flank steak portion, I used a marinade suggested by my friend Shawn which proved to be amazing.  The recipe suggested a 6 hour time in the marinade, but I opted for 2 days!  It was incredibly flavourful and I’d recommend this marinade to anyone.  We didn’t have any red wine vinegar so I just used white wine vinegar and it worked fine.  Now as for those “PEI Potatoes”, turns out the grocery store had Ontario potatoes, which makes sense considering that’s where we live, so we had to settle for those.  I apologized profusely to Deb and Dave.

The wine I chose wasn’t necessarily recommended by anyone as a perfect pairing, I just really love that wine and everyone else seemed to like the pairing with the beef so, yeah me. 

Slice in half, grill flesh down for 3mins then flip and coat with honey/rum/cinnamon glaze

Now, here’s where things got really interesting, the grilled banana dessert.  Ever since I got my Big Green Egg, this was the dessert I’d dreamed of trying. It just didn’t seem to me that the bananas would hold their formation with the heat so I was skeptical but they did indeed.  The recipe called for everyone to get a full banana but since we’d already had two courses, I figured I’d go easy and just give everyone a half.  I should not have mentioned this as Kelly got mad at me wishing there was more.  BUT then I pulled the ice wine out and it was amazing and a wonderful finish to the meal.  

The evening was pretty awesome and all was good despite our cat Peanut knocking over Dave’s wine, which of course then caused Deb to be startled and spilled her wine.  Kind of a domino wine crisis, but all worked out though I think it may have cost Deb a sweater.

So let’s fast forward to this weekend.  We had our friend Kathleen visiting from Boston spending the night at our place and she desperately wanted to experience all that the BBQ has to offer.  Since I knew she loved beef as we’d just been to her wedding a month earlier where they served roast beef, I decided to do a repeat of last week’s flank steak recipe.  We mixed it up a wee bit by making it the full course and had grilled potatoes and I found my elusive asparagus!  Kathleen was thrilled as you can see from her smiling face.  

We also repeated the grilled bananas for Kathleen but this time, due to Kelly’s protest last time, I made sure everyone got a full banana. Thankfully, Peanut did not spill any wine last night, though she did try and drink from Kathleen’s water after dinner.  I don’t think Kathleen minded though. ;)

Next week, I will do a turkey on the Egg for Canadian Thanksgiving.  So for all you Americans, I’ll be sure to post a step by step of what I did, and what I learned, since this will be my first turkey attempt ever, Egg or not.