 I'm William Bullington and I work for the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture Research and Extension. I'm the FCS educator and I work with new agents. Jessica is one of our relatively new agents. Jessica introduce yourself. Hello everyone my name is Jessica Angel and I'm the family consumer sciences agent in Cleveland County. Great well you know we just are fortunate that we live in a state that we have so many different things that we grow and you know we're really pretty well known for our cattle production and our beef production and so with grilling season coming up I think it's a good idea that maybe we talk some about grilling some beef. I think that's a great idea. Well you know I think it really starts when you when you go out to shop and when we purchase it. So what are your tips for purchasing beef? So my tips are when you go to the grocery store and make sure that your beef is always a cherry red or just a red. A lot of times if you see a discoloration that usually just means that it could be bad but more or less it's actually the fact that it has less oxygen. So it's best to choose this and if you want to you know store it at home right you can put it in the freezer for up to two weeks and or you can just use it within the next couple days. Right okay so if I bought that at the store I would just take it home and if I was gonna use it pretty soon I could just put it in the fridge. Absolutely. Okay that sounds great. Yes ma'am. All right so what kind of steak do you have there? So today we have the blank steak and a lot of people kind of shy away from this just because it can it's known to be a tough cut of meat. So it really just depends on you know how you cut it and then you know how you prepare it. I understand that you know a lot of times we really like some sirloin or some rib eyes or something but that blank steak when I've been looking at them they're usually less expensive. They are. This is a great cut of meat if you were really trying to you know budget you know with grocery store prices nowadays things are up and so this is a great I wouldn't say substitute but this is a great way to have a nice cut of meat that will fit within your budget. Great. Yes ma'am. Well you know some of the ways that I remember that we're gonna that we can tenderize and really get a lot of flavor is that we can use things like a marinade and so marinades are usually they have oils in them and they have some sort of acid and it may be lemon juice or lime juice and your oil you could use olive oil or any type of vegetable oil or whatever type of oil that you really like and that that acid is really going to break down those muscles sure is and then that oil is going to add that the moisture to it that we really need and so then the third thing that we want in that marinade is whatever our aromatics are going to be so whatever spices that you really want to put in there so you can really make your own marinade you can have all kinds of different recipes but if there's something that you really like you can make it your own flavor. Yes and we're not using the marinade today. No we're actually going to use a dry rub seasoning okay this is actually one of my favorite dry rub seasonings that I use at home okay and so it's super simple to make and you pretty much have all these ingredients in your pantry already. That makes it great that way we don't have to shop some more for it. Exactly yes and so today what we're going to have is we've got some chili powder we've got some ground cumin we've got some oregano we've got some cayenne pepper some ground thyme yeah some garlic we've got some black pepper and we've got a little bit of heat today is going to be some red pepper flakes sounds wonderful you can use any type of you know you can do a marinade you can also add different flavorings that you choose you know if you don't want all the heat you can just add a pinch of red pepper flakes or you can omit those as well but it's really what you want to make it so this steak is actually it really takes on the flavor sounds wonderful yes it's fantastic see how you're gonna do that right absolutely so what I'm gonna do here is I'm just gonna you know I've got it here in a bowl and I'm just gonna sprinkle just like so mm-hmm and I really want to get a good coat on it so can you get too much on it I don't think so you don't think so I know I bet not either no I think it would make kind of a nice crusty oh yes yes absolutely so it is a fantastic seasoning I'm just gonna kind of rub it in here just kind of pat it yeah and that way we don't lose all the seasoning and then I'm just gonna flip it over and I'm gonna do the same side okay there's other side with the same seasoning so I just want to sprinkle it on here so I'm actually yes thank you I've actually got my grill pan and we've had it you know heating up so next I'm going to spray it with a oil and today I'm using avocado oil because of the smoke point okay usually you know with all of what has a lower smoke point than this but this way and we'll spray it on here and so we're cooking about medium heat today so I'm expecting between 300 to 400 degrees Fahrenheit on our grill and so that way we don't have any burnt taste to from the grill from our right that's great because I know sometimes it can really smoke oh yes and then you'll get that kind of charred taste it's not very good and you can also use sunflower oil that also has a high smoke point so I'm just gonna make sure that my grill pan and as you can see it's already starting to smoke which is fantastic it's great yes ma'am so what I'm gonna do here is I'm just gonna place it season side down on the grill pan okay kind of shake off the excess if we need to because I've got like patting there ooh we hear that sizzle yeah yeah so we're just gonna let this hang out okay about how long does it cook it really just depends so with charcoal it's usually between 11 to 16 minutes but with gas grilling it's 16 to 21 minutes okay so we're going to let this get up to temperature about 145 with an internal temperature and then we're gonna take it off the heat sure and we're gonna let it rest hang out and it's going to roughly we're gonna we're trying to get a medium warm pink center so great that's exactly the way I like it just kind of pink in the middle but we want to make sure that it's our food safety is we're that's very important and so we'll pull this from the grill flip both sides and let it rest and then we'll sauce it so this is a great alternative that we're cooking inside on the grill instead of outside yeah so if the weather's bad or whatever or maybe you don't have a big outside grill so this is a great way to do it it sure is so we're just gonna kind of let this hang out cook it for another five just until we kind of get these edges you can still see here it's still a little bit paint for us like an internal temperature and then we'll let it sit and rest that sounds wonderful so my goal is to reach an internal temperature of 155 degrees Fahrenheit or 160 and that way we'll have that wonderful looking piece of meat that sounds great yes are you ready to take it off I think yes ma'am yum yes so you can just set your timer delicious and then that way you can you know roughly three to five minutes is usually the rule of thumb and then we will slice into it sounds great so I think we've got a really good sauce that we're gonna put a toss there so let's talk about the ingredients for that sauce what is that sauce again this is called a chimichurri sauce yeah and it is fresh because you know we're like I said we're getting into the summer months and grilling season and what better way to use those herbs in our garden so today we're gonna have in a regular chimichurri sauce you're gonna have some parsley and today we have Italian parsley right and you're also gonna have some red pepper flakes for that extra kick yeah but of course if you're not a spicy person you can always and you know just do a little pinch and you're gonna have some olive oil some vinegar today we're using white vinegar okay and we've got some but you could use some apple cider if you want you could you sure could okay red wine vinegar oh yeah vinegar it's just really okay you want to make it okay and we've got some fresh green onions you know those are in the garden yeah and we've got four cloves of garlic and you can chop this if you want to like I did today it's gonna all go in a food processor right so it'll get chopped up right and we also have a pinch of salt and some black pepper and some fresh lemon juice right so if you don't have one of those great big fancy food processors can you use like just one of those little chopper thing you sure can you can really make this the consistency that you want to if you really want it to have bigger pieces in it you can totally do that but if you want it you know more puree like we have today here we have a really good combination I think I think it's gonna be really smooth and really nice it's gonna be really delicious and so it's just really whatever you want to do but it could be chunky you wanted kind of a chunky it's kind of like salsa you know some people like chunky salsa with the big great tomatoes in it some people just like it really smooth right so I think we have a good combination here today but it's just really your preference okay so you've gotten it off the grill now yes it's been resting for about five minutes now so I think we're ready to slice wonderful now flank steak you slice it a little bit different than you do other state because of the grain of the meat is that right that is correct so my rule of thumb is to kind of look and see where the meat you know the striations of the meat are and so of course you're gonna need a sharp knife so it's actually going this way so I'm gonna cut this way so you're gonna cut diagonally I'm gonna cut diagonally yes absolutely in that way it just makes it for a really tender slice right and so we're looking for a warm pink center yes that is correct so I let this sit we pulled it off the grill as you can see at about 145 degrees Fahrenheit and so it's had an internal temperature when we before we sliced it of about 155 to 160 which is exactly what we were sure to achieve you can if you like your meat to be well done you can always and cook it to and have an internal temperature of 165 degrees or 170 and if you like it a little bit of a medium rare 145 internal temperature would be the correct temperature for that right that looks great I like mine just that little bit of paint I feel like the moisture it still has a lot of moisture it does sometimes when you cook it more than that it draws out a little bit to me but because you've let it rest it we're not gonna be losing that moisture on there now you're getting those nice thin slices I love thin slices you can always cut this however you know if you want some thicker strips you can do that as well but just for you know I prefer thin sure and if you're gonna use it like for a fajita or something along those lines yeah you can always you know cut it you can always when you do this you can always you know slice it into strips if you wanted to it's just kind of really however you know you want to whatever you're making will fit best just like what we have over here yeah yeah we've just gotten nicely you can see we have that nice warm pink center right and so I'm just gonna take some of our chimichurri sauce we still got some nice juices coming through I'm just gonna kind of just drizzle yeah yes and so you can always keep this table side too as well sure you know some of your guests want some extra sauce on it mm-hmm it's just really you know however you want to make it so but yeah it's yeah green just really pairs nicely with that flavor it really it's gorgeous yes it is and then so if you wanted to do like fajitas or something then you can just use pretty much anything you want to you sure so we've got some avocados mm-hmm and some nice long wonderful I think these are going to be delicious yes and the fact is is that you know so many steaks like a ribeye all the times it has a lot of fat to it doesn't it yes and we wanted all marbled in there that's the reason that's so tender and so good but yet this is a very lean piece of it is it's actually one of the leanest ones on the market so flank steak is actually right underneath the sirloin right of the cow so you know it's it's a pretty lean kind of meat it's great has less fat so it's good for heart health you know heart health and it's you can marinate it and make it super tender great well I sure hope that everybody enjoys doing some grilling this summer don't you yes I think it'll be a great time yes I think so too