Grilled Hanger Steak with Garlic Butter

I grew up in a meat and potatoes house, but steak was rarely that meat. I'm weary now of buying steak to cook at home because I don't want to ruin an expensive protein. It was just my luck when I saw hanger steak on sale.

Ingredients & Tools

• hanger steak
• 1/2 cup red wine
• 1/6 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 10 garlic cloves
• 1/2 stick of butter
• Kosher salt
• canola oil
• shallow dish
• grill pan
• paring knife

Prep all 10 cloves at once. Five are for the marinade and five for the garlic butter.

Break the garlic down into a paste using a tablespoon of Kosher salt. I used a mortar and pestle for this, but it can easily be done on a cutting board.

I took a picture of the garlic and the salt together, but not the finished, mushed up product. Le sigh.

Hanger steak has a tendon running right down the middle. It isn't tasty. Removing this before cooking will also make the steak grill more evenly. 

I seriously need a paring knife. Using a chef's knife for this job was not ideal. If you have a paring knife, please use that to have control over cutting down into the tendon. The goal is to create two equal cuts. My steak did not have equal amounts of meat on either side of the tendon. It usually does, but don't worry, we ate it!

The last butchering step is to butterfly the steak. You'll reveal all the beautiful marbling by making a horizontal cut without cutting it completely through to the other side.

Put the butterflied steak into a dish and it's time to start marinading. Add 1/6 of a cup of Worcestershire sauce.

Add 1/2 cup of good red wine.

Add the salted garlic and cover with aluminum foil. Allow the steak to marinade for 1-2 hours. Turn it over half way through.

I patted my steak down after taking it out of the marinade, in the hopes of getting a nice crust. The meat was so moist, though, it released some of the marinade on the grill itself.

Moisten a paper towel with canola oil and give the grill a rubdown. Preheat the grill and season one side of the steak liberally with Kosher salt. Place the seasoned side down on the grill and then salt the other side.

Cook on each side for 6 minutes for medium rare, but I'm suggesting 8 minutes per side. I know, I know, any steak aficianado will roll her eyes at cooking steak above the medium rare temperature. I almost always agree, but hanger steak is a tougher cut than, say, a strip and it needed more cook time for my taste.

While the steak is on the grill, cut up 1/2 stick of butter and melt it over low heat with the five cloves of garlic.

Allow the steak to rest for 10 minutes before cutting to allow the juices to redistribute. Cut against the grain and serve with garlic butter. This felt like a very fancy dinner and was even better on the second day when the steak was cooked through a bit more.