Southwestern Steak, Black Beans and Rice

[FTC Standard Disclosure]  I receive sponsorships and material support from the Certified Angus Beef® Brand.  Any opinions stated are my own.

Sometimes my creative flow is more like a trickle.

Case in point, I had a nicely marbled flat iron steak but I just wasn't feeling the creative spark.  No worries.  I just hopped over to Certified Angus Beef® Brand's recipe page and searched for flat iron steak.  I found a recipe for Southwestern Steak, Black Beans, and Rice and off I went...

The flat iron steak (aka top blade) comes from the chuck or shoulder of the steer.  Despite coming from section with an abundance of connective tissue, the flat iron steak is one of the more tender cuts of beef right up there with the tenderloin and teres major.  

It's also my Achilles heel in butchery.  I've tried to break one out two times and both times I botched it.  Diana Clark, the in-house Meat Scientist at Certified Angus Beef® Brand, was kind about my less than successful meat processing efforts but I know she was just being nice.  Fortunately for me, I can often find flat iron steak at the meat counter.

The steak portion of the recipe is quite simple - pepper, cumin, salt, and ancho chile. 

Of course, you can buy ancho chile already ground for you.  But I like to buy the bags of dried anchos and freshly grind them in a spice/coffee grinder.   The aroma and flavor are smoky, chocolaty, and little to no heat.

One thing that I did differently from the recipe is that I used the rub as a dry brine for 8 hours.  This pulls in more of the flavor and helps retain juices during cooking.

Don't forget to loosely cover the steak when dry brining.  The air in the refrigerator will dry out the surface of the meat but we need the juices to stay there so they will be pulled back into the steak.

I seared the Certified Angus Beef® Brand flat iron steak on a hot kamado grill using cast-iron grates.  It would also be delicious, seared on a scorching hot cast-iron skillet.

One end of the flat iron may be thicker than the other end.  Just turn the small end away from the hottest part of the fire and the thicker end towards it, as shown here.

I pretty much followed the directions for the rice except that I used fresh tomatoes and fire-roasted poblano instead of Ro*Tel.  

Easy, delicious, and I didn't even have to break a creative sweat on this one.