Hard Rock's Executive Chef, Jason Gronlund, works out of HQ, where we have a full production kitchen set up, ready for anything he might throw at it. There's a lot of experimentation with different ingredients, techniques, and recipes before a new menu item shows up at your local Hard Rock Cafe. It's a huge process, full of successes and failures, but for someone who loves to cook as much as Chef Gronlund it's also an incredible job to have.

With that in mind we just wanted to share one of Chef's personal recipes from the Hard Rock test kitchen. Now, this isn't one of our current menu items (you didn't think we'd give away those recipes, did you?), but it is still an excellent representation of what happens in the test kitchen and what our culinary crew does on a daily basis. Enjoy!

Chipotle Skirt Steak with Tex Mex Rice and Corn Spoon Bread Pudding
Serving Size: 6                                
Preparation Time: 1:15/24Hours

1. Place the skirt steak, TABASCO® Brand Chipotle Sauce and Italian dressing, in an air tight container and shake well, let stand for 24 hours.
2. Pre Heat oven to 350°f, butter a 9” x 9’ glass baking dish. In a mixing bowl, place the corn bread mix, cream corn, regular corn, sugar, eggs, milk . With a wire whisk mix until mixture is smooth and evenly blended and there are no lumps. Pour mixture into buttered pan. Place in oven and cook for 25 min or until golden brown and firm.
3. In a bowl, place the ranch dressing and chipotle pepper sauce, whisk together until evenly blended. Place the mix in a squirt bottle if you have one. If not cover and hold for use.
4. In a sauté pan over medium high heat, place the butter, once melted add the onions and the peppers. Sauté until the onions are caramelized. Add the black beans and the rice and sauté until all is hot. Remove from heat and add the green onions, cilantro, lime juice and the salt. Blend all together until mixture is even in appearance. Add any additional salt and pepper that you may require.
5. On a hot grill, cook the marinated skirt steak to the desired temperature. To serve, place approximately ¾ of a cup of the rice mix on a plate, top with the skirt steak cut in strips, about 6 ounces. Drizzle the top with the Chipotle ranch and garnish with some crushed tortilla chips and serve with a spoon of the corn bread pudding.

Additionally, you may serve with sour cream and sprigs of fresh cilantro as well. You may use any peppers you would like in the rice from multi-colored, to spicy jalapenos or habanero’s.