Three events led to me this salad: A photo of a grill, herbs, and the hated weekly newspaper. All seemingly unrelated, but they came together in the perfect food storm.
The Grill
I saw a grill in Bon Appetit magazine – it was the Kudu grill and I had to have it. After a tad bit of research, and a quite bit of begging to management because I had just bought a grill that same week, I ordered it. Big disappointment when I was put on a waiting list. Ok, whatever, I can wait.
Herbs
Meantime, my life goes on, oatmeal, daily salads and everything. But now, I’m loving fresh herbs in my salad more. So I rabbit on. Seemingly unrelated, these two things.
Ugh. The paper.
But in walks the hated weekly newspaper. For 18 years I lived in a commercial district. I never got a weekly paper. You know the one, with the ads for the grocery stores and such. But now that I live with real people and real neighbors, I get this paper. I hate it. I’m not gonna lie, when I see the thing sitting on my grass, (I still haven’t figured out why they can’t get it on the cement), I want to hurt someone. On a really crappy, rainy day I want to hurt myself, just scoop my eyes out so I don’t have to see the paper again. I just hate. that. stupid. newspaper. But my wife likes to do the lookysee with that paper, so … yeah.
Then this beautiful day came, quite by surprise. My Kudu grill showed up at my door!! That same day the stupid weekly paper ad thingie came. And my wife found a spicy herb steak salad recipe in it.
She knew I was weak at that moment because I was looking to throw something on that grill. “You know that paper that comes every week? I found a recipe in there. It’s a steak herb salad thing. You’re gonna love it. Let’s try it with the new grill!”
My gut reaction was to hate the recipe just because she found it in that stupid paper. But y’all, I couldn’t. Fresh chopped basil, cilantro, green grapes, arugula, jalapeños! And of course, my dry aged ribeye – on my new grill. Happy days!
I still hate that paper. But before I snatch that badger up behind my wife’s back and bitch the whole way to the recycle bin, I’ll see if there’s a recipe in there that catches my eye. ; )
Grilled Steak with Spicy Herb Salad
Bright herbs, the slight tang of rice wine vinegar, and meaty, marinated steak come together to make the perfect salad.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup green onions, thinly sliced
- 1 cup green grapes, halved
- 1-2 small jalapeños, chopped
- 1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
- 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
- 1 shallot thinly sliced
- 1 big zip-top bag or container to marinate in
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup soy sauce, I like La Choy
- 2 tablespoon oil
- 2 teaspoons black pepper
- 1 pound steak
- 1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
- 4 cups spring mix salad
- 1/4 cup sliced watermelon radish, sliced or another vegetable
- 1/2 cup matchstick carrots
- 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
Instructions
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In the ziplock bag or whatever container you’re going to marinate in, add shallots, brown sugar, soy sauce, oil, and pepper. Shake or whisk to combine and add the steak. Shake to coat. If you’re using a container you may want to flip the steak every now and then. Marinate for 1 hour to overnight.
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When ready to cook the steak, get your grill preheated. Remove the steaks from the marinade, but don’t get rid of the marinade. Save it! Grill on each side to your preferred doneness. 125° for medium rare, 130° for medium, or up to 170° for well done. Place the marinade in a small saucepan and bring to a boil then simmer for at least 10 minutes to reduce by half. Set aside.
When the steaks are done, remove to a cutting board and let rest for 10 minutes.
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While your steak is resting, throw the salad greens, herbs, green onions, grapes, jalapeños, radish (or other veg) and carrots in a large bowl. Add a generous pinch of salt and pepper in the bowl along with the 2 tablespoons of rice wine vinegar. Gently toss to coat.
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Slice the steak and serve over the salad greens. Drizzle the reduced marinade over the steak.
Recipe Notes
If you’re doubtful 2 tablespoons of rice wine vinegar is enough for this salad, don’t be. There is so much flavor in the herbs and spring mix, steak and sauce reduction that it’ll be enough. However, if you feel you need some ranch or blue cheese, or whatever, go for it, but please give it a try as is first. The flavors are so freakin’ bright!
If you don’t like spring mix, you can use just plain old lettuce. Love tomatoes? Add ’em! Don’t feel you can do without cucumbers? Add them too! Afraid of a little heat? Remove the seeds and membrane from the pepper or use a milder one. Can’t find watermelon radish? Just substitute another veg you like.
The best way to determine doneness of a piece of meat is a thermometer. I love my Inkbird thermometer for this. You’ll get exactly the temperature of meat that you like if you use a thermometer – just takes the guess work out of it.
This sounds very yummy. I do love a good salad. Pinned.
Lovely salad recipe! I absolutely love it. Thank you for bringing this recipe to Fiesta Friday!
This salad looks amazing! Thanks for sharing at Friday Frenzy Link Party! I am choosing this as one of my features this week 🙂
Your Salad looks fantastic! Thanks so much for sharing with us at Full Plate Thursday, your post is awesome. Hope you are having a great week and come back to see us soon!
Miz Helen
Beautiful salad! I am pinning it so I can make it this weekend!
I discovered putting meat on my salads back in my working days when I needed just something different to bring for lunches. This flavor combination looks wonderful! You get your greens and your proteins in one dish, and I like it’s Asian influence. Getting hungry here…
This looks amazing! I love the addition of cilantro! The colors really pop and it looks just so refreshing! I think a glass of wine would also make is just perfect! So yummy!
The salad looks just perfect so thank you for sharing. p.s. I hate that paper too!!!
YES! Weekend goals this steak salad 😉 I can’t wait to try this recipe. We still have a few months of grilling season left. Perks of living the California life. Thanks for sharing at the inspiration spotlight party @DearCreatives pinned and sharing. See you again soon.
It does look delicious! And now I’m wondering if you have a love/hate recipe with the newspaper? 🙂 Thanks for sharing with SYC.
Jann
Another blogger friend shared a photo of her son in law cooking on that grill and right then and there I knew I wanted one! We used to find a lot of grills like that at camping areas back in the day and I loved them! Now I usually don’t get all excited about a grill but this one spoke to me! My brand new never used weber was stolen when my house was broken into, but now I want one of these instead!
Now about that salad = what a crazy bunch of flavors all going on but it looks and sounds so delish! And that steak would make any rabbit food go down, lol! I love the Asian-y influence!
Ahhh, that look so delicious. We’ve been using a table top grill to make steaks, but I want something extra to go along with the meat for dinner!
This is it! So, so good!
That is one absolutely beautiful salad! I see myself hanging out on the deck eating that with a big ol’ glass of sweet tea.
You have the right idea Helen!
Can’t remember how I ran across your blog, but glad I did. Can’t backpack anymore, bad knees and too old but I still like reading about it. Your steak salad works fine for me. When I lived in the US, I used to get a steak salad at Outback Steakhouse often. Now you’ve gone and put me in the mood for a steak salad, ich is a good thing.
I’m glad you found me too Ron! I’ve been taking collagen for the knees – got that from the hungrymoutaineer.com….we’ll see how that works out for me.
Can’t wait to check your blog out! Not very (not at all) familiar with Swedish food so it should be pretty fun to see what you’ve got!
I don’t think steak and salad goes together in a dish, but what do I know? And cilantro? Eh. At least you didn’t use rosemary with the streak. I did notice you mentioned dry aged steak. Do you age your own? Pretty easy in a refrigerator if you don’t. I’ve been doing it for about ten years. Amazing.
I need to get back down to the Pinhoti Trail. Keep up the great work. Greetings from Michigan.
It’s pretty delicious Danny, I’m telling you. But, you could always put chicken, just use the same marinade. Not everyone likes cilantro, you could always sub.
I do dry age my own, check the video out through the link when I mentioned the dry aged steak. I guess I may have not done a post about it, but I did a large hunk of boneless ribeye in my fridge for around, 28, 29 days with the Umai bag. (I’m gonna do capicola probably next week. There’s a hurricane a’ comin’ today, so that put a damper in my plans). Before that though, I would just dry age in my fridge too, just a couple of steaks at a time.
Hay Jaxx, no, I didn’t even notice the video link to your dry aged steaks. Must not have been too observant yesterday. I dry age mine differently than you. It’s easier. I rinse and pat dry the loin. Then I wrap it in a bath towel and shove it in the fridge. You might want to swap out the towel once or twice early on, but that’s it. After a month I pull it out of the fridge and slice all the steaks first. Then I trim around the edge of the steak. I don’t trim the entire loin before cutting which looks to be a pain.