Fast Marinated Flank Steak

This is one of our favorite grilled dinners. I cut the recipe out of the , Great American Home Cooking magazine years ago. I will post the recipe as it was found in that magazine, but I will add notes in red on how we have changed the recipe to suit our tastes.

Fast Marinated Flank Steak
Marinade:

• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar We use a lot more than this, probably close to 1/2 cup
• 2 tsp each olive oil and mustard We use a lot more of each of these, probably closer to 2TBsp of the oil and at least a 1/4 cup of the mustard. Dijion mustard gives the taste a little bit of warmth, but we prefer to use ground mustard for a tangy taste.
• 2 garlic cloves, minced Again we use more, usually about 4 cloves
• 1/2 tsp each salt and pepper

1. Mix the marinade in a resealable plastic bag. Add steak; marinate for 30 minutes. We have found that we like this to have a strong taste, you can not get that in 30 minutes. We prefer to marinate this steak for at least 2 hours in the refrigerator, the longer the better. HOWEVER, not longer than 24 hours.
2. Pour the marinade into a small saucepan. Boil the marinade for 1 - 2 minutes, then spoon over the steak. We found that since we marinate the steak longer, we didn't need or like to do this.
   
3. Broil the steak 4 inches from the heat, 6 minutes per side for medium-rare. We prefer to grill this steak. Flank steak is a steak that is meant to be eaten medium-rare to rare. You can cook it longer if you need to eliminate any trace of "rare", but the longer you cook it the tougher it will get. Let the steak stand for 5 minutes, then thinly slice on an angle. You want to cut Flank steak against the grain to help with it's natural toughness, when cutting against the grain it will be almost fork tender. The thinner you can slice it the better.

I like to serve this with mashed potatoes, usually Ranch Mashed Potatoes or Garlic Mashed Potatoes.