Juicy and tender strips of steak with a spicy and fragrant chimichurri sauce. - A fabulous Argentinian dip, which will liven up any steak. Perfect for a Saturday night in
Chimichurri with steak
This easy meal is great for a Saturday night in with a bottle of red and a good film. I love to have this dish with a good helping of rosemary potatoes and an avocado salad on the side. To be honest its quite a lot of food, but sometimes a massive feast on a Saturday night is just what I need. If I'm going to eat big this is the way I like to do it - plenty of protein and lots of interesting flavours.
Chimichurri is a really simple dressing.
Just a bit of chopping and mixing required and hey presto you have an amazing dressing for your steak. Who needs a posh, reduced jus!!? Well ok, sometime a posh jus is nice, like a lovely rich redcurrant jus with a juicy lamb rack 😛 ... but lets talk about that another time. Chimichurri is the way we're going today and at the moment, in my head, its the best way to liven up any steak 🙂
Avocado salad
As well as serving steak with some delicious rosemary potatoes, I love a massive bowl of avocado salad. The creamy flesh goes so well with the steak and spicy chimichurri. If you decide to have the avocado salad make you cut the avocado just before you serve the meal. This will keep the avocado nice and fresh and stop it turning brown. Or use another one of my easy avocado recipes as an accompaniment.
How do you prepare steak and chimichurri?
So this meal is quite straight forward once you've done a bit of prep, which makes it a great dish for a Saturday. Most of this recipe can be prepped in the morning leaving you with a couple of things to do later on when your ready to eat. The salad and chimichurri can be made in advance and refrigerated; the potatoes can be chopped and seasoned ready for the oven; and the steak can be brought out of the fridge an hour or two before cooking in order to bring up to room temperature. If you really want to save time later you could bake the potatoes, cool and refrigerate, and then just reheat in the oven for 5 minutes or so when you're ready for them.
Cooking steak
So this just leaves the steak; and of course this should to be cooked when you want to eat it. Lets be clear, i'm all up for an easy life on a Saturday night but I also respect the steak and will give it all the time and attention it needs. But really it doesn't need that long, 15 minutes max and you have yourself a beautiful steak. The recipe below gives the times for a rare-medium steak. You can adjust this depending on how well done you like your meat. (2 mins on each side for rare and 6 mins on each side for well done). Always remember to rest the steaks for at least 5 minutes before slicing and serving.
This is also a great dish if your cooking for a few people - just pile everything up on a board and let people help themselves!
Steak platter with Chimichurri, Rosemary Potatoes & Avo Salad
Ingredients
For the steak and potatoes:
- 2 Rump steaks
- 250 g New potatoes
- 1 tbsp Dried rosemary
- 2 tsp Sea salt
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- Seasoning
For the chimichurri sauce:
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- Handful Parsley chopped
- Handful of Basil chopped
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 1 garlic clove finely chopped
- Half an onion finely chopped
- 1 Red chilli finely chopped
- juice from 1 lime
For the avocado salad:
- 1 avocado
- 2 large handfuls of spinach leaves
- 10 green olives
- 5 baby tomatoes halved
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- Juice of half a lemon
- Half tsp of wholegrain mustard
- 1 tsp of honey
Instructions
For the chimichurri sauce:
- Place all the chimichurri ingredients, apart from the oil, in a bowl and mix well. Gradually mix in the oil until reaching desired consistency. Season and taste (Onion and garlic can be fried in a little oil prior to mixing if you prefer a weaker flavour). Transfer the sauce to a blender and blitz for a minute or so to achieve a smoother finish. Taste again and add more seasoning or oil if required. Pour into a small dish to serve.
For the Rosemary potatoes:
- Pre-heat oven to 180°C. Cut potatoes in half and spread on a baking tray. Drizzle with 1 tbsp olive oil, sprinkle over the rosemary and sea salt, then bake in the oven for around 30 minutes. Check potatoes regularly and turn with a spatula. Remove from the oven once golden brown. Leave in the oven on a low heat (60-70 degrees C, until ready to serve)
For the steak:
- Place a large griddle pan or frying pan on a high heat. Prep the steak by drizzling both sides with olive oil and seasoning well (use fingers to rub the oil and seasoning all over the meat). Once the pan is hot place the steaks in the pan and leave. Cook on the first side for 3-4 minutes before turning over and cooking for a similar length of time on the other side (this will cook the steak rare – medium, adjust the time according to your preferences). Transfer the sealed steaks to a baking tray and place in a low oven 60-70°C to rest for 5 minutes. When ready to serve remove the steaks and slice into thin pieces, then arrange with the potatoes on the platter board.
For the salad:
- Half the avocado and remove the stone. Run a knife through the flesh of the avocado without piercing the skin – create 3 to 4 lines in both directions to make cube shapes, then use a spoon to scoop out. Arrange avocado on top of spinach leaves along with olives and tomatoes. In a small bowl mix the olive oil, lemon juice, mustard and honey to create a honey and mustard dressing. Pour over the salad ensuring the avocado is well coated (this will help to prevent it from going brown).
- Serve the chimichurri and avo salad alongside the steak and potatoes.
Nutrition
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