Chimichurri with Flank Steak

[ts]
This was originally titled "Flank Steak with Chimichurri", but I felt "Chimichurri with Flank Steak" was more fitting.

This dish was all about the chimichurri!



[ts]
We used Bittman's basic recipe (in The Best Recipes in the World) as a guide at first, but we now more or less wing it.

So in goes about 3-5 cloves of garlic and 2 chile peppers (instead of red pepper flakes), chopped, the the juice of one lemon, a glurg of olive oil and a whackload of chopped parsley from the market.

That's it!

There is something magical that happens when you combine garlic, chile peppers, lemon juice and olive oil. We thought we hit the jackpot before when we started making our own peri-peri (for peri-peri chicken). This is just as good and it's even simpler! The only difference is that chimichurri uses a lot of parsley.

Chimichurri is sobrang pampagana. A translation of this would be. . .

[js]
I can't think of a neat, exact word translation for the phrase.

"Sobra" just means super, exceedingly so, and the "pampagana" -- well, think of a person's appetite like a fire, and the chimichurri as more hot coals to stoke the hot, hot fire.

Like our appetites need any more stoking. We are a family of big eaters, and on normal days, our appetites are already burning at about 700 degrees. The chimichurri just added about 500 degrees to the blazing fire!

Sobrang pampagana, translated, not so very elegantly, is "super-appetite-stoker." Just add a bit more gusto to that phrase and you have it.

This chimichurri is really quite a hit and we are lucky to have extra chimichurri left for the next day. After all, we have some guests who were eating the chimichurri with a spoon and drinking it like soup.

Yup, true.

Super-appetite-stoker!

Chimichurri is that good.

[ts]
Oh yeah -- (afterthought, haha) -- we served chimichurri with some flank steak, along with duck fat potatoes and yellow bean-English peas & dill salad.



[js]
I rubbed the flank steak with a little bit of salt, pepper, and cumin. Lime juice and lime zest were also massaged into the beef.

There is a natural affinity between grilled beef and chimichurri and one bite just leads to the next which leads to the next which leads to the next. . .

Super-appetite-stoker!



[js]
Although the chimichurri is quite magical with beef, its applications can be diverse, not limited to meats. The next day, the extra chimichurri we had we tossed with some string beans (just microwaved) and the string beans were devoured with gusto.

Super-appetite-stoker!

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Market Loot Series
Pesto Potato and Green Bean Salad
Yellow Beans, English Peas, Radish and Dill Salad
Grilled Corn
Fried Green Tomatoes
Chimichurri with Flank Steak
...