Hanger steak ハンガーステーキ

We do not eat lots of beef. We eat more pork and chicken. When we eat beef, often, we will go for filet mignon. If we are going to have Fajitas, we go for a "skirt" steak. We often noticed when you go to other countries, cuts of the meat especially beef is quite different. Hanger steak is one of these cuts which have been more popular outside the U.S.. More recently, even here in the U.S., it is getting much more popular becase it is very tasty, although it is not one of the tender cuts of beef. The day, I got  a whole red snapper, I also saw hanger steaks in the butcher section of our gourmet grocery store and I could not resist getting one small steak. When we eat beef we do not eat that much. We often prepare it in a manner suitable for an Izakaya dish or as an accompaniment for a drink. I often serve beef sliced so that you can eat it with a pair of chopsticks. 

This is not a recipe per se. Often, I make a simple soy sauce brown butter sauce for steaks (I learned this sauce from a small but elegant Japanese course menu restaurant "Makoto"). Tonight, I cooked a hanger steak (seasoned with salt and pepper) in a frying pan, without finishing in an oven as I usually do for filet mignon, to cook it medium rare. I let it rest on a plate covered with aluminum foil. Since we had an already open bottle of left-over red dust Shiraz from Australia, I decided to make a red wine sauce with shallots.  While the meat was resting, I added 1 large shallot cut in thin rings and sauted using the remaining fat from cooking the steak for 3-4 minutes until it got soft and slightly brown and brown bits (fond) come off from the bottom of the pan. I deglazed the pan with 2-3 tsp of red wine vinegar and let it evaporate to almost dry. I then added 1/4 cup (or whatever was left in the bottle) of red wine and the meat juice accumulated in the plate on which the steak was resting. I reduced it to a small amont just enough to cover the bottom of the frying pan (5 or so more minutes on a high flame). I finished the sauce with 2-3 thin pats (1 tbs or less) of unsalted and cold butter, tasted and adjusted the seasoning with salt and pepper if needed (not needed here). I then sliced the hanger steak into thin strips across the grain of the steak. I topped the steak with the shallots and the wine sauce. This steak was so flavorful that you do not have to eat that much to enjoy the beef. We definitely needed to open a better wine. Crauford Maroon Vineyard Tattoo Cabernet Sauvignon 2005 went so well with this steak.