May 2, 2014
T&C Recipes

Our favorite restaurant in Nantucket, Cru, shares the recipe for its grilled skirt steak with summer tomatoes, avocado & sweet corn salsa verde.
By Micaela English

Our favorite restaurant in Nantucket, Cru, opens it's doors for the summer season on May 8. We can't wait to go this summer, and in the meantime, make their amazing skirt steak recipe at home. Yum!

Skirt steak

4, 6 oz skirt steaks
1/4 c olive oil
6 cloves garlic, crushed
2 sprigs rosemary, roughly chopped
cracked black pepper

Marinate the skirt steak a few hours before you plan to grill.  Refrigerate until you begin preheating your grill.

Salsa verde base (The salsa verde base may be made a day ahead.)

1/4 c chopped green olives
1/4 c chopped pepperoncini peppers
1/4 c finely chopped red onion
1/2 c fresh lemon juice

Add:
2 c sweet corn, grilled and removed from the cob
1 cup chopped summer herbs. 
(We love to use basil, flat leaf parsley, chives & lovage)
1/4 c  olive oil
4 lemons, juiced
4 sliced farm tomatoes
1 sliced avocado  

Combine all of the ingredients for the salsa verde base and refrigerate until you are about to serve the steaks. I like to peel the corn and grill it whole on the cob. Let the corn cool and then cut it off of the cob.  At the last moment, combine the grilled corn, fresh herbs, lemon juice and olive oil with the salsa verde base.

Grill the steaks.  About 5 minutes per side for medium rare.  Let the steaks rest as you arrange the sliced tomatoes and avocado. Slice the steaks and lay them across the sliced tomatoes and avocado. Top with the sweet corn salsa verde and dig in! This recipe should serve 4.

In the dialect of the Wampanog Indians, the island's native inhabitants, "Nantucket" means "The Faraway Land"—and in this promise of escape, the sleepy, picturesque island draws nearly 200,000 visitors a year. Just 30 miles south of Cape Cod, Nantucket is near to bursting during the steamy summer months; the modest off-season population of around 11,000 swells to over 60,000 with the arrival of day-trippers and renters, who mix and mingle among the locals at farmers’ markets, shops, bars, and restaurants. The high season kicks off on Memorial Day while Labor Day generally marks the close, and while there are plenty of reasons to visit in the off-season, just a few hardy restaurants and shops will remain open for the landlubbers who dwell on the 14 mile island. Here, a selection of my favorites, for the summer season and beyond:
 
INDULGE IN SEAFOOD AT CRU
On the site of a former fried clam-slinging local dive bar carpeted in AstroTurf now stands the understatedly elegant restaurant Cru, helmed by an intrepid trio: Jane Stoddard, who handles the day-to-day operations and special events, Carlos Hidalgo, handling libations, and the loveliest of chefs, Erin Zircher. While honoring her impressive résumé of globetrotting and classical French training, Erin’s menu ebbs and flows with seasonal, locally grown produce, and a bounty of shellfish and seafood from the rich waters surrounding the island. When you finally decide on which masterfully curated cocktail to imbibe, don’t forget to order a pile of fresh corn hushpuppies glistening in a sticky Aleppo-spiced honey butter as a preamble to what’s sure to be a memorable meal. They may be more sophisticated, but you can still get fried clams; try the fried Ipswich clams with Meyer lemon tartar sauce, unctuous blue crab cocktail with both zesty cocktail and horseradish cream sauces, Nantucket-harvested oysters, exquisitely prepared pork schnitzel, and warm-buttered lobster rolls.

Cru
1 Straight Wharf
Nantucket, MA 02554
508/228-9278