Grilled Steak and Shrimp

[FTC Standard Disclosure]  I have taken the year off from sponsorships; however, I have accepted two educational trips to the Certified Angus Beef® Brand Culinary Center this year.

When you go to the store to pick something up for dinner, do you tend to:

1. Go to buy a specific protein and have a recipe idea in mind, OR
2. Go to see what protein looks so good that you can't pass it up and build the meal around that?

If we are just cooking for ourselves, we generally go with the latter.  Alexis and I went to Food City earlier this week and found a package of thin-sliced, USDA Prime, Certified Angus Beef® Brand NY strip steaks.  They also had 26/30 count shrimp for sale, so we decided to make a quick grilled steak and shrimp. 

These steaks were thin, weighing in at 6 ounces each.  That's what I call "breakfast steaks" because they are perfect for a quick sear in a skillet and serve along with some fried eggs.  Or in this case, a quick grill and served with buttery, garlicky shrimp.

The challenge with steaks this thin is to get a good sear on them without overcooking the interior.  In general, you want HOT cooking temperatures (500°f or above) for a brief duration.  A hot grill or rocking hot cast iron skillet is the way to go.

Since this was going to be a hot and fast cook, mise en place is crucial.  It's like with stir-frying, you won't have 30 seconds to walk inside to get that one missing ingredient or tool.  

I made a compound butter with finely minced garlic and parsley.

I parboiled the green beans earlier and cooked them in a Griswold #5 cast iron skillet on the side burner to my Saber Elite infrared grill.  I cooked them in a little bit of chicken stock, a bit of butter, seasoned them with salt and pepper, and a squeeze of lemon juice.  

My original plan was to do the steaks in a cast-iron skillet at the same time as the shrimp, but the two skillets didn't fit like I thought.  That's okay because these Craycort cast-iron grates really lay down the grill marks even in a cook as short as this one.

I patted the steaks dry, applied a small amount of oil and then seasoned the steaks with my NMT Umami Steak Seasoning recipe.  I grilled them for maybe 2 minutes per side at 550°f.  This was a free cook (not writing a recipe, just going by pinches and "abouts"), so I wasn't writing anything down.

This smelled so freaking good at this point!

I preheated a cast iron skillet and then added a tablespoon or two of canola oil.  I almost immediately added the shrimp and seasoned them with Hawaiian red-clay sea salt and pepper.  I squeezed half a lemon over them.  I cooked them until they were just starting to cook through, about 2 minutes total.  At that point, I took them off the grill and....

As soon as the shrimp came off, I poured in some of the hot melted garlic butter and tossed the skillet a few times to coat the shrimp.  The heat of the skillet finished the cook.

 I really like this Lodge Pro-Logic skillet as a grilling accessory because

• It has the legendary characteristics of cast iron skillets (heat retention, durability, etc.) making it ideal for the grill.
• The curved wok-like shape makes it easy to quickly toss the contents around.
• It fits nicely in a standard-sized kamado grill with room leftover for steaks or such.
• It is relatively inexpensive.  The Amazon Affiliate link posted is about $30, but I think I bought mine for less than that at a department store.

When the skillet and steaks came off the grill, I placed them on a resting rack.  For the steaks, that was to let them cool while the butter melts.  For the skillet, it was more of a trivet.  Both of my grilling tables have metal surfaces but just the same, I don't like setting a rocket-hot skillet on them.

Everything was fantastic.  The garlicky-lemon shrimp and grilled steak were delicious.

 

Even at just two minutes per side, the steak was right where I wanted it - medium-rare.

If you are making a version of this, absolutely serve this with crusty bread because you will want to sop up the juices on your plate.  Even after we finished our dishes, Alexis and I were by the skillet dipping in pieces of torn baguette in the juices.  So. Darn. Good.  

I didn't write up a recipe for this because I wanted to enjoy the cooking process.  But I checked the recipes over at Certified Angus Beef® Brand, and they have something very similar - Strip Steaks with Shrimp and Scampi Butter. 

You can also join our group in the Certified Angus Beef® Brand Kitchen on Facebook. We exchange ideas, recipes, and beefy info there that might interest you.