Dinner party number eight

The eighth dinner party was the night after the day the shipping people (what do you call them officially? shippers?) came to pack up all my kitchen things. By necessity, anything I cooked from that point on had to be simple, so a simple dinner it was.

I did, however, manage to impress myself endlessly by making a cake despite having no mixing bowls, no measuring cups or spoons, no scale, and to make it just that little bit more exciting, no recipe. I just tossed random amounts of things into an old bunged-up pot to melt, added still-random quantities of dry ingredients and stirred. Ta-da: cake batter. Poured into an old, battered pan on top of leftover poached pears. Miraculously, it rose and was edible, even very good, although of course I have no idea how much of what I used so there is no recipe.

Recipe-less cake

Anyway, the menu:

Cheese plate (insanely good taleggio and port salut, a gift) with crostini made with homemade bread (a leftover from my weekend baking escapade)

Oven-grilled beef fillet with chimichurri and sliced avocado

Smoky, spicy sweet potato wedges

Steamed greens – a mix of broccoli and green beans

Upside-down pear and ginger cake

Even though it would be nice to have the cake recipe to share, the chimichurri is really what stood out for me. The piece of fillet we had was on the small side for four people, and I got the idea in my head to stretch it by layering the cooked, sliced fillet with avocado slices. A red wine sauce or pepper sauce probably wouldn’t work well with the avocado, I thought; I wanted something light and fresh, and preferably not hot. Chimichurri seemed liked a good bet.

I’d never made chimichurri, so I scanned a few recipes to get the basic idea and then went ahead on my own. I thought it would require some effort, since I’m lazy and generally make similar kinds of sauces in my food processor which was packed and hopefully on a boat to Singapore. In the end, it was the simplest thing and something I’ll definitely make often. The finished fillet-avocado-chimichurri dish was probably my favourite thing I’ve made in months.

Bowl of chimichurri

Chimichurri

Makes about 1 cup

I made this a couple of hours before using it, and kept it at room temperature. I’m sure it would keep, covered and refrigerated, for a few days, although the garlic might become more pronounced with time.

2 big handfuls flat leaf parsley

1 big handful picked oregano leaves

2 small cloves garlic, peeled and chopped

½ c olive oil, approximately

½ tsp salt, approximately

¼ tsp chili powder (or less, a pinch, if you don’t like things too hot)

1 tsp red vinegar, approximately

Place the chopped garlic, parsley and oregano on a chopping board, making a big pile. Using a sharp knife, start chopping, working from top to bottom and side to side so you get to all the bits. Keep chopping until the herbs are very well chopped but still have some texture – the finished product isn’t meant to be smooth.

Scrape the chopped herbs and garlic into a bowl and add half of each of the remaining ingredients. Stir well and taste, then decide if you think the sauce needs the moisture from the remaining olive oil, and the seasoning from the remaining salt, chili powder and vinegar. Add and adjust as you see fit, tasting as you go.

This is a very strongly flavoured sauce, so however you use it, a little goes a long way.

Plated main dish

And here are bonus instructions for assembling the main dish I served:

Beef fillet with avocado and chimichurri

1 x recipe chimichurri

1 beef fillet, as much as you need for the number of guests (as I mentioned, we used one that was a little small for the number of guest, but worked perfectly presented this way, so it’s a good recipe to stretch your meat if you need to)

Salt

Pepper

Olive oil

1 avocado for every four guests

Make the chimichurri first, and set aside.

Grill the beef fillet, simply rubbed with olive oil and seasoned with black pepper and salt – use the oven’s grill, a stove-top griddle pan, braai it, whatever you like. Our griddle pan was packed and gone so I used the oven grill and it worked perfectly.

When the fillet is cooked how you like and resting, peel the avocado and cut it up into thinnish slices, about ½ cm thick. Slice the fillet into 1cm thick pieces. Lay the fillet and avocado down on a platter in an alternating pattern – 1 slice avocado, 1 slice fillet, repeat. Sprinkle with salt (crunchy Maldon salt flakes, if you have them), pour any steak juices over, and finally top with the chimichurri.

The mixture of meat juices and leftover bit of chimichurri that’s left after all the meat and avocado has been eaten is delicious, so some bread for mopping is nice to have on hand. 

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Seared sweet chili steak salad

I used to be a vegetarian, and while I do now eat meat, my diet still consists mostly of vegetarian food. Until recently, that is. For some unknown reason I've been craving red meat in the past few weeks. It's strange, but I generally go with what my body seems to need. More red meat it is, then.

This salad is a recent attempt to feed the new red meat craving. It's so simple that I honestly didn't expect much of the result, but it surprised me by being utterly delicious. And if you're interested in this kind of thing, it's also very high in protein, high in fibre, and low in fat.

Seared sweet chili steak salad
Makes enough for 2

100g good quality steak (preferably fillet), cut into strips
3 tbsp plus 1 tbsp sweet chili sauce
juice of 1 lemon, halved
2 tbsp canola oil, halved
1/2 of a small head of broccoli, cut into florets
1/2 cup thinly sliced red cabbage
1/2 cup cooked quinoa (or other grain such as couscous or bulgur wheat, if you prefer)
big handful wild rocket (baby spinach would also be good)
salt

Toss the steak strips with 3 tablespoons of sweet chili sauce and half of the lemon juice and set aside.

Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a medium sized pan over high heat, till it starts to smoke slightly. Add the broccoli florets and toss around the pan for a few minutes, until the florets are cahrred here and there but still bright and crunchy. Remove the broccoli from the pan but keep the pan on the heat.

Add the steak strips and all the chili-lemon juices to the pan and stir fry for abot five minutes, until the strips are just cooked through and the juices have caramelized. Be careful not to overcook as that would make the steak tough and chewy.

In a medium bowl, toss together the broccoli, steak strips, and all remaining ingredients, including the remaining sweet chili sauce, lemon juice and oil. Toss and taste, adding as much salt as needed.