Italian Style Rolled Beef Skirt

Beef skirt is one of our favourite cuts for its flavour and texture. Also known as bavette in France, it's a great way to enjoy steak without breaking the bank.

We saw a demo at a BBQ festival where Genevieve Taylor cooked a similar recipe. As soon as I saw it I knew we could modify it slightly to be cooked on the LetzQ Spit rotisserie. Cooking on the rotisserie gives a great even cook.

The Italian flavours add a real punch, and the simple tomato salad keeps it all fresh.

BBQ Temperature

Ingredients

For the beef skirt

  • 800g beef skirt steak
  • 10-15 basil leaves
  • Parmesan to grate
  • 1 red chilli
  • 1 tsp of coarse ground black pepper
  • 2 tbsp light olive oil

For the tomato salad

  • 1 punnet of red and yellow baby tomatoes
  • 3 tbsp green pesto

Equipment

Method

To make the rolled beef skirt

  1. We need to butterfly the beef skirt into a long piece that is about 1/2 cm thick. The important bit to this is that the grain of the meat, the muscle fibres, are running across the butterflied piece, not along it. This is important as when it’s rolled and cooked, you want to be cutting it across the grain as this will make it far more tender. Use a sharp knife to open out your skirt, and flatten it out. You could ask your butcher to do this for you.
  2. Onto the flattened steak, spread out the basil leaves.
  3. Chop and sprinkle over one red chilli. Deseed it if you don’t want it too spicy. You could substitute in some Nduja, I didn’t have any.
  4. Sprinkle over the black pepper.
  5. Now grate over your parmesan cheese, giving it a good coating.
  6. Roll your steak tightly, and use some butcher string to secure it. Scott Rea has a great video on how to tie a proper butcher’s knot.
  7. Feed your rotisserie skewer through the centre of your rolled skirt.
  8. Set up your grill for a direct cook with your rotisserie and set the temp to 220°C.
  9. Drizzle a little oil over your skirt and cook for about 30 minutes until the internal temp is 52°C.
  10. Take off and allow to rest for 10 minutes.
  11. Serve on a tomato and pesto salad.

To make the salad

  1. Chop your red and yellow baby tomatoes in half lengthways.
  2. In a bowl, spoon the pesto over the tomatoes and mix gently to cover the tomatoes.

Notes