Ah, Memorial Day Weekend, that
time of year in which you dust off
the grill, vacuum out the cobwebs,
scare away any critters who have
taken up residence over the winter
(including one black widow,
yikes!), clean the grates, turn on
the gas, and realize your starter
doesn’t work. So you use
a match, and for some reason that
grill. Will. Just. Not. Get. Hot.
Enough. So you start over with the
Weber and some charcoal, and grill
a batch of beautiful skirt steak
skewers that were marinating the
whole time you were futzing with
the equipment. And they are so
perfect and delicious that you
don’t care about the
broken starter that needs to get
fixed or your close call with a
black widow. Like a Homer Simpson
thought bubble, all you can think
about is steak so goooooood. Why is
skirt steak in particular so good,
and so perfect for grilling
threaded on skewers? Let me show
you: It’s the fat, of
course. Skirt steak is much fattier
than, say, flank steak. The way
that the fat is marbleized
throughout the meat results in a
cut that is much more flavorful,
and more forgiving when you cook
it. Unlike flank steak, which
because it’s so lean
needs to be cooked rare or it gets
too dry, skirt steak can be cooked
all the way through without
suffering. You still need to cut
the steak across the grain when you
cut your strips, but the steak will
be tender and flavorful because of
the fat.
