Hankered for some steak but not the 300-gm slab of meat that I usually drown in peppercorn sauce. Not today. I wanted a steak with a bit of finesse, flavorful but not intimidating on my plate. And no, I don’t want a filet mignon either!
Then it hit me. I remembered a recipe from one of my Valli Little cookbooks. It did call for eye-fillet steak, which is filet mignon in Australia, marinated in soy, ginger and Szechuan pepper, chargrilled to medium rare, and cut up into cubes before being drizzled with a chili-cilantro dressing. My version, I decided, will feature my favorite beef cut: sirloin.
So I raided my brother’s spice cupboard, ground up some authentic Szechuan peppercorns, marinated the meat and prepared the dressing. I erred on the side of caution and made a bowl of cool cumin-scented cucumber raita, just in case my kid couldn’t handle the heat. In any case, I could always offer him a cup of mango ice cream I had whipped up a few hours earlier but I’m digressing.
After a few forkfuls of spicy, hot, cool and lemony things that happily played with my taste buds, I sat back feeling my lips break into a grin, sated. Oh, did I mention I ate two plates of rice with those little buggers? Talk about finesse!
xxx
Karima
