Teriyaki Flank Steak (sous vide)

I love this preparation of flank steak! It's flavorful, moist, and tender, which is a pretty difficult combination to achieve using any technique other than sous vide. The 3 1/2 hour cooking time breaks down the collagen for tenderness, but the 134°F cooking temperature makes it come out medium rare!

Make about a cup of teriyaki sauce. A pre-packaged teriyaki marinade is OK, but the sauce commonly found in the supermarket is far too thick. You can easily make your own by heating in a sauce pan:

• 6 oz. soy sauce
• 1 oz. sake (rice wine, or dry sherry)
• 2 tbsp. sugar
• ginger, peeled and minced
• garlic, minced

Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to simmer and simmer for 5 minutes. Reserve a few ounces for a dipping sauce.

Cool the remaining sauce.

Preheat the sous vide machine to 134°F.

Take a 1.5 lb. flank steak and trim any excess fat and silverskin.

If necessary, cut it so it will conveniently fit into a vacuum bag. Vacuum seal. One of the advantages of the vacuum sealing method is that it greatly reduces the amount of marinade that you need over traditional marinating in a container.

Sous vide for 3 1/2 hours at 134°F. This combination is slightly controversial since technically the meat will be in the danger zone close to 4 hours. The temperature is so close to 140°F, however, bacterial growth, if any, would likely occur very slowly and take more than 4 hours to reach critical levels.

Let the meat rest for 15 minutes before thinly slicing, across the grain.