Skirt Steak Lettuce Wraps with Sweet Chili Sauce

After a long day of running errands, Alex and I decided to make some Asian lettuce wraps for lunch.  Or I decided to make them and told Alex what I was thinking.  Luckily he was completely on board.  Granted, he is almost always completely on board with my suggestions when it comes to dinner.  We had some skirt steak in the fridge that we picked up at Fairway yesterday, along with some Bibb lettuce I picked up the late last week with the vague idea of doing lettuce wraps at some point over the course of the weekend.

This was one of those meals that was best described as fairly easy to make and tasty.  No it didn't blow my mind, but it was very good and we both really enjoyed it.  I love that the ingredients are almost all ingredients that we keep in the pantry at all times.  The only ingredients we had to go out and buy in order to make this dish were the steak and the Bibb lettuce.  You could also switch out the skirt steak for any other cut of steak (modifying the cooking time appropriately), chicken, shrimp or even tofu if you're going for a vegetarian day.  If you're going to switch it out for chicken or tofu, I would marinate the tofu with soy, ginger and garlic before frying it up, rather than rubbing it with the garlic-sugar mixture we used here.  If I were to use shrimp, I would probably saute it with garlic, ginger, and s&p.  Skirt steak inherently has so much flavor that it really doesn't need much to make it delicious, but with some substitutions would require more marinating and/or seasonings.  We used the garnishes we had on hand - cilantro, fried shallots and finely chopped peanuts, but there are a number of other garnishes that I think would be delicious.  The first alternatives that come to mind are very finely minced red onion, minced water chestnuts (I really wanted to add water chestnuts for some crunch but we didn't have any in the apartment) or minced jicama.  You could also omit the garnishes entirely and still have a nice lettuce wrap, although I recommend you throw at least something in to provide some crunch for fun.

Recipe after the jump!

Skirt Steak Lettuce Wraps with Sweet Chili Sauce

INGREDIENTS:

For sweet chili sauce:

2 tbsp Thai sweet chili sauce

1 clove garlic, thinly sliced

1/4 cup rice wine vinegar

1 serrano chile, thinly sliced

2 tbsp fish sauce

2 tbsp lime juice

1/2 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp unsalted peanuts, finely chopped

For steak:

2 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp garlic, minced

s&p

1 1/2 lbs. skirt steak, cut into portions to fit into the cast iron

1 tbsp vegetable oil

Juice of 1/2 lime

2 heads Bibb lettuce, cleaned and leaves pulled off

fresh cilantro sprigs (for garnish)

1 tbsp unsalted peanuts, roughly chopped (for garnish)

fried shallots (optional, for garnish)

To prepare the sauce, whisk together sweet chili sauce, garlic, rice wine vinegar, serrano chili, fish sauce, lime juice, sugar and peanuts in a small bowl.  Set aside.

Mix together sugar, garlic, s&p in a small bowl.  Coat steak with sugar-garlic mixture, and rub in. Place a large cast iron skillet over medium-high heat.  Add 1 tbsp vegetable oil.  Add beef to the pan.  You will probably have to cook it in two batches.  Be careful not to overcrowd the pan.  Sear the beef on both sides, about 2 minutes per side for medium to medium-rare.  Transfer the meat to a cutting board and tent with foil while you cook remaining beef.  Repeat with remaining beef.  Allow the steak to rest 5-10 minutes to allow juices to redistribute before slicing against the grain, on the bias.  You want the steak to be cut about 1/4-1/2 inch thick.

To assemble wraps, place a few pieces of beef inside a lettuce leaf with a couple of cilantro sprigs and whatever other garnishes you want, spoon a little sauce over the top, and serve.