Tea Spiced Flank Steak

We really enjoy drinking tea in the Falk household, and I have been buying all sorts of loose leaf tea for a while.  I've been itching to start incorporating tea into my cooking for a while now.  While we were in Half Moon Bay (for the beach) with Ashley, we found this Ming Tsai's cookbook, Simply Ming, at a local used book store and had to bring it home.  The first recipe we have made from it has given me the opportunity to start cooking with tea  - here it is mixed into a spice rub and then rubbed onto a piece of red meat before grilling.  We used Keemun Concerto from Adagio Teas - a smoky black tea, and we all agreed it added a nice smokiness and extra depth to the meat.  If anything should be changed form Ming Tsai's recipe, I think that for many of my friends and family this spice rub is too spicy - I will include the amounts suggested as well as possible reductions for the more sensitive palate.
In terms of the meat, we have been buying red meat from Open Space Meats which is a ranch located a few hours from us and provides very tasty grass fed beef at quite reasonable prices.  For those of you not in California, Oregon, and Nevada, they will not ship to you, but you may be able to find your own locally ranched meats.  Eat Wild provides a search engine to find places by you.

Tea Spiced Flank Steak


Spicy Tea Rub

The original recipe calls for enough ingredients to make 6 cups of rub.  On the flank steak shown, we used nearly 1/2 cup.  The ingredients listed are scaled down to make ~ 2 cups of rub.  This can be stored for several weeks.

1 cup black tea leaves (Keemun Concerto worked well, but so will many others)
2 T kosher salt
2 T red pepper flakes (consider reducing to 2 t.)
2 T chile powder (consider reducing to 2 t.)
2 T garlic powder 
1 T cayenne pepper (consider reducing to 1 t.)
1 T dried chives or dried onions
1 T five spice powder


1.  Mix all ingredients together.  We found that we like the texture better after grinding with a mortar & pestle.

My sister, Ashley, is grinding up the spice rub :-)

Flank Steak


1 Flank steak
1/2 cup of spicy tea rub (above)
2 T extra virgin olive oil


1.  Trim excess fat from flank steak.  Rub olive oil and spicy tea rub onto the meat.

2.  Let sit for 15 minutes for spices to meld with meat.
3.  Grill over medium high heat.  We like this cooked to medium which takes about 5 minutes per side. (David says: until it looked done...)
4.  Let sit for 5 minutes, then slice at an angle.  My suggestions for sides:  garlic mashed potatoes and grilled veggies such as zucchini & bell peppers.