A recipe for GrandNana's flank steak and sarsa (yes, sarsa)

From a special guest.

Sometimes I’m intending to make something to write about, and then I go on vacation so someone else takes over and does it for me. That someone is sometimes Emma, and this time, you are hearing from her in her own words.

Babes, it’s grilling season. Grilling season rules for three reasons: first of all, who doesn’t love a little char? Second of all, great reason to not run the oven in your house if you, like us, are lacking A/C. Third of all, if you can grill with confidence, especially as a girlie (#feminism), you look cool. It also makes you realize the dirty little secret about grilling, which is that it’s not particularly difficult at all. Unless something goes wrong, such as running out of propane when everyone has had a little too much to drink to be able to drive to the gas station. Which definitely didn’t happen to me this past weekend! 

When Kate asked me to fill in for this newsletter, I consulted the recipe book, fearful I’d be stuck with something as haunting as the meatloaf or the enchiladas. Luckily, my eyes immediately alighted on our “GrandNana Benina’s Flank Steak and Sarsa” recipe. Check mate. Perfect Memorial Day weekend grilling meal, particularly if you have three carnivore friends coming to stay. 

For those who like to be know it alls, I’m sure your immediate instinct upon reading the above was to text Kate, “Um, typo in your dumb sister’s newsletter post. I think she means salsa?” Well, you would be wrong. I mean sarsa. 

The last time I had the family flank steak and sarsa recipe was at my grandmother’s 90th birthday party, almost four years ago—shout out to Nana who, when asked for the origin story of ‘sarsa,’ for this newsletter, said “she heard the term from a Basque man.” It always comes down to the Basque in this family, as it’s the only moderately interesting part of our extremely white ancestry.

Internet research into “sarsa” results in shockingly few leads, save for the comments section in one recipe, with two separate women confirming the origin as related to the California Basque: 

So what is sarsa? Well, not too far off from a pico de gallo, but there’s more of an emphasis on the chiles, and the acid comes from vinegar. 

I marinated the flank steak overnight in a blend of Las Palmas Chile sauce, which took me three grocery stores to find (and only after a careful label examination confirmed that Las Palmas markets their chile sauce as enchilada sauce in some regions, but uses a different formula for enchilada sauce in others). Dad just notes “vinegar” as an ingredient in both the sarsa and the marinade (yet another instance of most of the recipes in this book being frustratingly vague and inconsistent on measurements and type). I texted my mom and Aunt Carolyn to ask what kind of vinegar would be best, whether apple cider vinegar would be good. I waited two minutes, then impatiently added ACV. “I used white wine,” my aunt texted back a minute later. “I wouldn’t use ACV.” “Great!” I responded. Moving on.

Another can of the chile sauce goes in to cook the pinto beans and here is where we ran into our first hiccup of the evening. I’d already soaked the beans for eight hours so, per consulting with my friends, I threw them on the stove about an hour before we planned to eat. Beans are mysterious—last week a bag I cooked was ready in 45 minutes. This year, cut to two hours later, we are several margaritas and several dozen hands of poker in and the beans were nowhere near done. I’d been, as my friends called it, “threatening” to make the sarsa for hours. I was despondent about having gotten the timing so wrong. Nobody else cared. 

Around the time the beans were almost ready (still toothsome, but good enough to eat), I looked over at the grill and the temperature had plummeted. The propane had run out. Nobody was sober enough to drive to the gas station. I had awful visions of—after all that—going into the kitchen, turning on our (electric!) stove, and throwing the steak on a cast iron. It would have been fine. But it would not have been perfect. 

I thought there might be another canister in the garage, and as I stood inside looking, I had a sense it was directly under my nose and I just wasn’t seeing it. I went out to my friends—“Can someone look?” I asked. “I feel like there’s one in there?” And 30 seconds later, Eugene came back, knight in shining armor, full canister in hand. Crisis averted.

Beans ready (enough), steak and corn on the grill, toppings assembled (cheese, sour cream, pickled onions, avocado, and don’t forget the sarsa). It was 10 pm, three hours after our scheduled dinnertime. I sliced into the steak—perfectly pink. Call me Grillmaster Dries. Basa got the first piece (sorry). It was maybe the most delicious meal I’ve ever eaten in my life, and that certainly couldn’t have been because we were all drunk and starving. 

Upon finishing this newsletter, I realize my two final fatal errors were 1) not making the chocolate eclairs and 2) not awarding a prize to whoever ate the most. Sorry, Nana. There’s always next year.

Donations Time: Last month, $160 went to The Way Station. This month, donations will go to a charity of our upcoming guest star’s choice, he who bravely made the enchiladas as they were supposed to be made, to be named soon! You can switch your subscription to increase the amount donated each month for $5 a month or $30 a year right here.