Hanger steak is often referred to as “butcher’s steak”. In the past, butchers used to keep this flavorful cut for themselves, a kind of “insider’s treat”. Also known as onglet, it is highly flavorful and economical, and one of our house favorites along with flank steaks. You don’t find this tasty cut of beef that often at Manila groceries or upscale delis, but I got this onglet from S & L Fine foods a couple of weeks ago, along with the flank steak I recently featured. I need to get a few more kilos soon and store them in the deep freeze for those days when we have a hankering for beef…
We usually grill up some beef and hit it with some steak sauce for a quick fix, but this time around, I was intrigued with the Argentinian way of serving beef with chimichurri sauce. So I searched around for recipes and ended up making this version of chimichurri, with some chopped tomatoes to add volume, texture and flavor. I chopped up a large bunch of Italian parsley, half as much mint and coriander or cilantro and placed that in a bowl. Minced several cloves of peeled garlic and a touch of red onion. Added a few tablespoons of red wine vinegar, twice as much olive oil, a dash of cumin and several pinches of salt and some cracked black pepper. Mix this well and set aside while you grill or cook your beef.
We just salted and grilled the onglet for several minutes on each side until done rare, then let it rest for a few minutes before slicing. Serve on a pre-heated platter and with the chimichurri sauce on the side. The pairing was wonderful — really, really tasty and appealing. The acidity from the vinegar is tempered by the richness of the olive oil and the fragrance of and flavor of all those chopped herbs. The garlic can be overwhelming, but for some, that’s exactly what they are looking for. I am surprised we haven’t done this at home before… definitely a nice alternative to steak sauce that we generally rely on when we are in a hurry. No wonder this classic Argentinian pairing between slightly tougher but very flavorful meat and a sauce with serious flavor and punch is a classic… it’s terrific!
P.S. I went on to pair this chimichurri sauce with a large zubuchorizo in bread, for a classic “choripan” apparently very common as a quick snack/street food in Argentina, and it was a smash hit! We may introduce this “zubuchoripan” at our Mactan airport outlet in a couple of weeks… :)
13 Responses
Mr MM Wow it is 5:00am in Manila… and you are on your computer blogging
Zubuchoripan?now that sounds interesting! Hope to go back to Cebu and gorged on your new products!
oh, good! something relatively easy to assemble (chopping and grilling ahead of time) in a limited working space.
MM is an early bird..thanks for all these must tries! I’m a flag waving, foot-stomping carnivore! Churrascarias, if not bad for my health, would be my daily dine out place…DIY is a much healthier and cheaper alternative…I’m in the land of steaks, after all..Hangar steak, watch out!
zubuchoripan with chimichurri would be something to look forward to taking on the flight, the other option (not an option at all, actually) being the crummy, overpriced sandwiches sold onboard.
Millet, we already have a boneless zubuchon sandwich on Artisan’s bread with some sriracha on offer at the airport now. Folks have started taking that on board too. The zubuchoripan would be another option once we get our acts together… :) Natie, the chimichurri is really easy, so if you have steak… Pits, this is super easy. Betchay, its a garlickly rich salty sandwich… charly, I think clearest in the early morning. But truth be told, I can write a post ahead and just “time” its release, so the timestamp might not be exactly when I write the piece. :)
looking forward to going to cebu just so i can fly out from mactan and thumb my nose at the food cart when it comes rolling down the aisle ;-)
Hi! What do the local butchers here in Manila call Flank Steak or Onglet? Hmmm will check out the offerings in Mactan soon.
I really need to go Cebu just to get all the new things at Zubuchon. The dishes, the juice, and smoothies.
I hope it will be available soon. Be there in Cebu around 15th of May. First thing first in my itinerary a visit to “Zubuchon”! I’m excited!!!
Great ! Looking forward. Time we have good food in our airport, at leuuast in Mactan.
The base ingredients for chimichurri are usually parsley, oregano, garlic, vinegar, oil, and salt. When I was in Buenos Aires a few people said to use plain vegetable oil instead of olive oil, claiming the latter masks the flavors of the herbs. For my tastes, I like olive oil.
Everything else is optional according to the cook’s taste and to what it’s accompanying. It’s one of those things that if you ask 10 people the recipe, you’ll get 20 answers. I like your addition of mint, which I am sure would pair very well with grilled lamb chops (medium rare please!)
Chimichurri also makes an excellent marinade for grilled flank steak, serve the meat with more chimichurri on the side. I like it on everything, including but not limited to grilled salmon, roasted/boiled potatoes, grilled corn, pork roulade.
MM, you need to experiment and develop a Filipino-style Chimichurri, I’m thinking in terms of adding a little sili labuyo, a touch of kalamansi, native vinegar, maybe a hint of patis (hmmm, maybe not)….you get the picture, just make sure it goes well with pork!
Most of the time we didn’t put any sauce on our steaks when we were in Argentina, my host family served steak almost 3 times a day (yes even for breakfast) and kids would rather have McPollo (Mc Chicken) – what’s wrong with these kids nowadays? lol
Parillas are popular there but lucky enough to experience gaucho style grilling out in the pampas. Nice