Grilled Balsamic Beef | Italian Barbecue | Food Wishes

Hello, this is Chef John from FoodWishes.com with Grilled Balsamic Beef. That's right, I know Italian barbecue restaurants aren't really a thing, but if they were, and I was a chef at one, this would be one of my signature dishes. And if you only use balsamic vinegar to make dressings with, you really need to watch this. Right, that might only be the second best use of this amazing vinegar. And to get started, let's put together this very simple marinade, which begins with the star of the show, the best aged balsamic vinegar we can find. And you don't have to break the bank for this, but there is a huge difference between an aged balsamic and the cheapest option at the grocery store. So please find something nice. And then to that we will add a splash of olive oil, followed by a little bit of Worcestershire sauce, or as they pronounce it in Italy, Worcestershire sauce. And then we are definitely also going to want a very generous amount of crushed garlic, followed by some freshly and thinly sliced green onions, or just a little bit of regular diced onion. But it's spring and I have plenty of scallions in the garden. And then we'll season this up with some freshly ground black pepper, some salt of course, and then because it makes everything taste better, a few shakes of cayenne. And then we'll finish up with a extremely important addition of honey, or just a little bit for an extra touch of sweetness. And that's also going to help us achieve a beautiful color on the finished grilled meat. And once we have all that in there, we'll take a whisk and give this a quick mix before we toss in some fresh rosemary leaves. And the reason we mix first before adding those is for the simple reason they get stuck in the whisk, which is super annoying. And no, they don't have to be chopped, just throw them in whole, since this is going to marinate for a long time and those will get a chance to permeate everything beautifully. And I'd say once our marinade has been rosemary'd, we can set it aside and we can move on to cutting up our beef. Which for me this time is going to be some top sirloin, which I like because it gives us something that's fairly tender, but still relatively affordable. And as usual, if there's any natural separation in the muscle, we'll go ahead and trim those pieces off first. And then cut those last to match the size of the pieces we're going to cut now. And what we want to do here is check the thickness of this piece of meat, and then cut strips across that are the same size as the meat is thick. Okay, so if the meat's an inch and a quarter thick, we'll cut these strips an inch and a quarter wide. And of course, it's never going to work out perfectly, but we'll try to get as many uniform pieces as we can. And that's it, we'll simply turn those and slice across into some hopefully relatively uniform cubes. And by the way, just go ahead and do one at a time. I mean sure, it is faster if you can do two or three at once, but by the time I had these lined up so I could make even cuts, I could have had the first one already done. And as I always tell you, the exact size doesn't really matter. But once you do decide on a size, try to stick to that size and get them all as uniform as you can. And if once we're done, there's some smaller pieces, we can put those together and make a bigger piece. Or if we have longer, thinner pieces, we can fold those up. And that's it, once our beef is cut, we'll go ahead and transfer that into our marinade. And we'll take a spoon or spatula and give this a very, very thorough mix. Okay, take your time, we want to make sure every chunk of that beef is evenly coated. And once that has been thoroughly and thoughtfully mixed, what we'll do is press some plastic wrap on top. Or I guess you could transfer this into a plastic bag, but I'm just going to do mine in the bowl. And then once covered, we'll let that marinade in the fridge overnight. And of course, feel free to give it a toss now and then, although that's not mandatory, as long as all those pieces of beef are in the marinade. Oh, and if you're pressed for time, you can get away with like three or four hours of marination, but I do think 12 hours is better. And fair warning, when we pull that out the next day to skewer it, it's going to be significantly darker, which is exactly what we want, since that means our balsamic marinade has achieved full penetration. And that's it, we'll simply impale this on some metal skewers, or some bamboo skewers if you prefer. Although if you use wood, be sure to soak it, since we're going to cook this over very high heat. And the last thing we need is our wood catching on fire. And if you end up using two pounds of meat like I did, I think that works out to be the perfect amount for four skewers, with about a half a pound going on each. And as you might be able to see, I like to put a couple paper towels down on the plate I'm going to transfer these onto, just to help absorb some of that extra moisture. Right, drier meat usually grills up better than wet meat. And of course, we're not going to discard any of the marinade, since as you'll see, we'll use that to baste our beef as it grills. And also after that, we can boil all the rest, and then strain it and use it as a sauce. But first things first, and before we worry about how we're going to plate this, we need to grill it to perfection, over, as I mentioned, very very high heat. Okay, we really do want to try to get a nice sear on the outside, and if you place beef like this that's soaked in a marinade, on a heat that's not high enough, the meat will actually start steaming and boiling in its own juices, which is not going to give us the texture or appearance we want. So the hotter your coals, the better. And if you cut up your beef to a similar size I did, over very high heat, this is going to take about 10 minutes total. But that is not necessarily the same thing as five minutes per side. Okay, I'll usually go about three or four minutes per side, and then just start turning them randomly, sort of rotisserie style, so they get a few more minutes on the other side. Oh, and once that first side is seared, we can start basting this with the excess marinade if we want, which we can use a brush for. But if we're cool, and I like to think that we are, we can tie up some rosemary sprigs and use that as a brush, which works beautifully, and we get some extra fresh rosemary flavor. Plus if people are watching, it totally looks like we know what we're doing, which of course we do, allegedly. And of course, charcoal grilling such as it is, you might have some hot spots and want to move things around a little bit, which is always something you should feel free to do. Right, the people that say you shouldn't move meat around too much on a grill, don't know what they're missing. Right, it's fun to move the meat around on the grill. So that's exactly what we'll do, basting it with that marinade when we see fit. And after about 10 minutes total, mine was looking and feeling pretty good. And you could use a thermometer and go to whatever your target temp is, but for me when it springs back to the touch, you're probably going to have something nice and pink. And once we feel that has cooked to the perfect doneness, we will pull it off and we will head inside, where everyone will be able to feast their eyes on what is just an absolutely gorgeous plate of beef. And then we should probably let this rest for about five minutes before we serve it up, which I was not able to do, since it just looked and smelled so good. I just had to pull a piece off and go in for a bite. And I am so glad I did, since that was incredible. Right, just super flavorful and moist and totally tender enough. And for me, just a perfect balance between sweet and tangy. But anyway, after that little chef snack, I went ahead and plated it up on top of some king trumpet mushrooms I grilled beforehand. And I went ahead and brushed over those accumulated juices, since those are way too delicious not to use. And by the way, when I was paying at the store, the cashier was actually making trumpet sounds and I couldn't figure out why. And then I realized it was the mushroom. And I just felt like I needed to share that very strange experience. And then as far as plating goes, I'm going to de-skewer one of these and serve it next to those mushrooms, maybe with a little bit of fresh lemon. And besides drizzling this with a little bit of olive oil, I did in fact bring that extra marinade up to a boil and then strained it and used that as a sauce, which is pretty much something we can do anytime we have extra marinade. And then I grabbed a fork and knife and continued to enjoy this incredible grilled beef. And by the way, this was so flavorful and so satisfying, I was completely fine going low carb and just enjoying this with the mushrooms. But of course, if you want to go ahead and serve this with some kind of starchy side, I would have absolutely no problem with that. I mean, you are all the Sergio Leone, but whether to serve this with rigatoni or some other kind of macaroni. Hey, what about some western spaghetti? Or you know what would be really good? Some kind of Italian inspired potato salad. Oh yeah, sign me up for that pairing. But truth be told, just with these grilled mushrooms, this beef really was perfect. And I could not have enjoyed this anymore. Unless maybe I had some of that Italian potato salad we were talking about. But no matter what you serve alongside, this is easy and incredible. And I really do hope you give it a try soon. So please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts, the printable written recipe and much more info as usual. And as always, enjoy!