Time to try some meat from Mezcla! Whole Foods did not have skirt steak (which is a super-thin, fatty cut on the cow’s chest), so I looked up substitutions and saw on one website that sirloin tips would work. The sirloin tip is a cut from the round of the cow, not the sirloin (confusingly) – it is located adjacent to the top sirloin, a more tender cut that is actually in the sirloin. The sirloin tip is a good bit thicker than the skirt steak and requires longer cooking to reach temperature. It should also marinate 2-4x longer. Some websites suggest cooking these thin and chewy cuts (such as skirt and flank steaks) to a bit higher temperature to make them more tender. I hit rare for mine, but I wish I had shot for med-rare, erring on the side of medium.

Cooking notes: adding a minute to the 2-4-minute-per-side cook time for skirt steak was not enough. The range should have been more like 4-7 mins for sirloin tips. Use a thermometer when changing cuts like this. You can also ask the butcher to select the thinnest cuts as there is a lot of variation. Also: I recommend putting the cast iron in the oven on max and then putting it over the burner on high. Don’t worry about over-charring the steak. Also, don’t bother with using a blender to grind the dried Persian lime. I’ve always used my spice grinder (which is a 20$ cheap “chopping” coffee grinder that I am sure to never use coffee in, a highly recommended investment.) You can easily grind a single lime for a batch of this recipe.

Tasting notes: The steak was nice. I realize in retrospect I should have marinated this cut much longer than the suggested one hour for skirt steak. The highlight of the dish was the maple butter. Do yourself a favor and make at least 2x as much as you need. The steak came out a bit too rare for my liking and definitely too chewy – it made me a bit hesitant to serve it to my housemate. The charr was perfect.

Joe’s Rating: 6.5
Difficulty: 4