North America · Volume 35, Tex-Mex, the Rio Grande and the Desert Southwest
Fajitas
Texas
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 3 hours 30
- Researched
- 26 sources cited
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Grilled skirt steak, marinated and sliced against the grain, served sizzling with warm flour tortillas, the format that turned a cheap ranch cut into a Tex-Mex icon nationally. Austin Chronicle
As tradition built it
Serves 4. About 30 minutes, plus a few hours marinating.
Ingredients
- 900g skirt steak
- Juice of 2 limes
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- to taste salt and black pepper
- 1 onion, sliced
- 2 bell peppers, sliced
- 8 flour tortillas, warmed
Method
- Marinate the steak in lime juice, garlic, cumin, oil, salt and pepper for at least 2 hours, ideally overnight.
- Grill or pan-sear the steak over high heat, 3 to 4 minutes per side for medium rare, then rest for 10 minutes.
- In the same hot pan, cook the onion and peppers until charred at the edges and just tender.
- Slice the rested steak thinly against the grain, and serve immediately, sizzling if possible, with the peppers and onion and warm tortillas.
What a modern chef changes
The grain-tenderising logic of a cheap cut, taken further.
Rung uncited, a mechanical tenderising and precision-searing logic
Method
- Marinate under vacuum in a chamber sealer, drawing the lime and garlic marinade into the meat far faster and more evenly than an open marinade over the same time.
- Sear only on a very hot cast iron plancha for 90 seconds a side, then rest and slice paper thin against the grain with a sharp slicing knife, maximising surface char without pushing the interior past medium rare.