Recipe 30- Cottage Blog- Brazilian Grilled Steak with Salsa Criolla
Welcome to Recipe 30 and my first "cottage" blog.
Whats a cottage blog you ask?
Well I have selected a few recipes from the book that I will be making up at our family cottage in Tobermory, Ontario.
This cottage is small and not meant for cooking elaborate recipes. There is very minimal kitchen supplies and gadgets and I wanted to test myself and see if I could pull off these recipes without the comforts of my well stocked kitchen at home.
It was such a nice getaway for me and the family after being so ill. Fresh air and the outdoors are the best medicine. We drove to the cottage on Friday and it takes approx.3 hours from our home. We went into town and had dinner that night at the "Crows Nest Pub"
If you ever have a chance to visit Tobermory, this is the place to eat. They have excellent food and you can't visit Tobermory without having the local Whitefish Dinner.
The following day, we headed back into town for some needed ingredients. Now I had planned ahead and packed pretty much everything I needed, but somehow misread my recipe.
It called for "Red Wine Vinegar" and I brought " Rice Wine Vinegar" Luckily the ONLY grocery store in town that has just the basics, had some. I also needed parsley.
Guess what?.... none to be found!!
On our drive back to the cottage there was a road side sign that said
" Hay, Rhubarb and Parsley"
HA! Awesome!
After a long windy dirt road and pulling up to a small shack, there was a man that had a very large well tended garden. He let me snip some fresh parsley and charged me $1.00
I have to say, this parsley was better then what I have seen in store.
Saturday afternoon after I had collected my last 2 needed ingredients I got to work on the Salsa.
Chef Michael suggests that you make this ahead, even days before use, but you can make it fresh as well and use it the same day. I figured a few hours before dinner time would give it some time for all the flavours to come together.
So to start, you add garlic, jalapeño pepper, red wine vinegar and some olive oil, salt and Oregano into a food processor. Now like I said before, we have minimal kitchen tools at the cottage, that includes a food processor. My mom sells Tupperware they have a GENIUS food chopper that works like a dream! She brought this up for me to use. I am telling you, skip buying a bulky food processor and get one of these. It works so well, that I may have to buy one myself. Its called a Quick Chef Pro System. Next I gave this chopper a couple of quick spins until the mixture is smooth. The blades in the food processor are so sharp it takes minimal effort. 
Now as you can see, there is some liquid around the salsa, this is why you want to make it a little ahead of time. This liquid will absorb into your other ingredients and perfectly marinate them.
Next I chopped my cherry tomatoes, this recipe calls for 2 pints.. this is a lot of slicing! Each one gets halved. I also thinly sliced some red onion. This whole chopping part was quite a task, I had one flimsy paring knife and a serrated bread knife available in the kitchen. I am lucky I have all my fingers. :)
Everything is put into a large bowl and your blended salsa mixture is added.
I then chopped my fresh parsley and gave everything a good stir.
Before this was tightly wrapped with plastic wrap and left to marinate in the fridge, it took and outdoor tour of the cottage to give everyone a good sniff of this concoction!
Needless to say, no one could wait for dinner.
A few hours later, I brought out the steak and let it come to room temp. This does wonders for cooking a juicy steak, give it a try.
I made the spice rub for the steaks. This included some cumin, garlic powder, onion powder, dry mustard and ground oregano. Once again I did not have ground Oregano and could not find it, so I used the leaf version, it worked just fine.
The recipe then calls to add everything to a spice jar and give the steaks a sprinkle of the seasoning and massage it into the meat. I used about a tsp worth of seasoning per side.
Next I headed outdoors and fired up the mini BBQ.
Once it was hot the steaks went on and were cooked about 5min per side and were done perfectly.
I let them sit for about 5 or so minutes before topping with the salsa.
These steaks once assembled are a thing of beauty!
The colours and flavours are so vibrant and fresh. This is a perfect way to dress up those summertime BBQ steaks.
Upon first bite, I was in utter shock. Between the salsa and the seasoning on each steak it was just truly amazing. I could not believe I pulled this all off in one tiny cottage kitchen with minimal tools.
This recipe is steak house quality hands down. If you are having a summer dinner party and thinking about steak, wow your guests or family with THIS recipe!
This recipe also makes a ton of salsa! You could easily add another 3 or more steaks and have more then enough salsa for each. Or you could use the leftovers for some killer nachos!
Get out there this summer and fire up those grills, this is defiantly NOT a recipe to pass up!
As always my compliments to the Chef and cheers to you, my friends!
Keep and eye out for Recipe 31 which is also a Cottage Blog.
Tomato & Basil Quinoa Salad
This was served along side the steaks.
No comments:
Post a Comment