We’ve been avoiding the London Broil for months now. Running into the large cut is usually as hard as opening up a weekly circular, and it seems to taunt us at every turn. It appears as an insanely cheap steak, but done wrong and it's the toughest, driest piece of meat that's hard to chew that we can imagine. The cut could refer to any number of parts of the cow, and fetches prices usually under the $4 mark. C-Town, Pathmark, and the Met have all had specials for weeks now. But it wasn’t until Key Food had the steaks going buy one get one free that we paid attention.

Some swear by marinades. Other love to salt the meat. But all agree with one little technique, and that’s to slice it thinly across the grain. Other steaks benefit from the same treatment, but none so drastically as this one.

For a cheap cut, it is usually fairly thick. That means that it’s going to need at least two kinds of heat, a initial shock to sear and then another to finish off the meat until it is ready. The easiest way to accomplish this is to use of your handy iron skillet. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees and heat the skillet over the highest flame for at least 5 minutes. Salt and pepper the steak and smear a little bit of canola oil on top. Plop the steak on the skillet, and sear for a minute on each side. Then tuck the skillet and steak in the oven and cook until it is to your liking. 125 degrees is medium rare, which will take just a few minutes. Remove the steak and let it sit for a few minutes, and then attack with a large knife across the grain. Try to slice as thinly as possible.

You will need your very own Key Foods card to get the deal, which will require you to spell your full name and sign. We started to fill out the rest of the form and the lady said it wasn't necessary. It took less than a minute and we got a steak for free. Good deal.