Wagyu skirt steak and triple cooked frites

Skirt steak is one of my favorite cuts of beef.  While I have enjoyed the beefy flavor of grass
fed beef, it really lacks the kind of marbling I prefer.  Snake River Farms had a sale a while
back and I picked up a few items which included some Wagyu skirt steak.

There was more external fat than I was expecting, so some trimming was needed.

The marinade included fermented black garlic, balsamic vinegar, worcestershire sauce, beef
stock, and a blend of Himalayan pink salt, fresh cracked black pepper and onion powder.

While I find skirt steak to be mighty tasty, I’ve never had any that I’d consider to be tender.
As I have recently purchased a sous vide machine, I decided to try it out on this cut of beef.
My previous effort using this approach with tough cuts of steak had been underwhelming up
to this point.  I decided to try lengthening the amount of time the steak gets left in the water
bath.  For this effort, I took it to 10 hours.

While the steak was slow cooking, I got started on the triple cooked frites.  I chopped some
Russet Idaho potatoes and roughly followed this recipe.

The fries were placed in a brine and cooked sous vide at 170F for 40 minutes and then dried.

They were cooked in batches at 266 F, until the exterior felt dry and crisp.  The fries were then
cooled and frozen.

After 10 hours of sous vide cooking at 131 F, the steak was sublimely tender.

Very little fat was rendered during the sous vide cooking process and the fat content made
for quite a flame fest on the BGE.  The sugar content of the black garlic, balsamic vinegar
and worcestershire sauce helped to get a good quick char.  I’m used to seeing a pool of
liquid at this point as far as wet aged meats are concerned, but these steaks were sitting in
a pool of their own fat.

While the steak rested, the third step of the fry cooking process took just a few minutes at
365 F.

I decided to bypass leafy vegetables so dinner was served.

The steak was very rich and beefy, with a slight tang from the balsamic vinegar and a sweet
finish from the fermented black garlic.  I didn’t use any seasoning prior to grilling the meat and
it didn’t need any.  The marinade and sous vide cooking really complemented the richness
of this beef.  The fries were perfectly crisp exterior with a soft, almost mashed potato like 
interior.

For the leftovers, I used something I’ve been delving into for the past month.  I’ve been taking
a stab at homemade bread and have gotten into making sourdough.  My second attempt yielded
a better effort than the first, but I’m still learning.

I made some parmesan parsley garlic butter to spread on two slices of bread and thinly sliced
some leftover steak.

The marbling is still highly visible.

I made a steak melt with some pizza sauce on the side.

Good eats.