Recipe: Steak and French Fry Salad with Blue Cheese Butter + Poached Eggs

Steak and French Fry Salad with Blue Cheese Butter + Poached Eggs

HalfBakedHarvest.com

4.7 stars

A french fry salad? It works!!! We had some sweet potato fries in the freezer so this was a perfect way to use them up (we didn't make the fries). One of my favorite parts of this dish is the dressing -- I loved the surprise of heat from the hot chili oil and ginger. Lots of shortcuts for this one in the tips below.

Oven-baked French Fry Ingredients: russet potatoes, olive oil, smoked paprika, chili powder, pepper, salt

Dressing/Blue Cheese Butter Ingredients: blue cheese, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, honey, olive oil, hot chili oil, ginger, butter, basil, salt, pepper

Salad Ingredients: steak, greens, grape tomatoes, walnuts, honey, eggs, olive oil, salt, pepper

Tips:

• Really no need to make the blue cheese butter for the steak -- just use blue cheese crumbles in the salad
• As mentioned above, I liked the hot chili oil and ginger dressing but blog contributor the grandcruman wasn't a fan and said he would just use balsamic dressing next time
• Didn't add the poached egg but would be a nice touch
• If making the compound butter, make 1/8 of it

Recipe: Charred Focaccia and Steak Salad

Charred Focaccia and Steak Salad
Food & Wine Magazine, Aug 2020, p. 42
4 stars

Blog contributor the grandcruman really liked the salad. I thought it was ok -- good, but could have used avocado. I did like the heat from the Calabrian chiles in the dressing. Good weeknight salad.

Ingredients: strip steak, arugula, tomato, Persian cucumbers, focaccia, watercress, red onion, extra-virgin olive oil, white wine vinegar, Calabrian chiles, Kosher salt, black pepper

Tips/Notes:

• Used hanger steak (so tender!) instead of strip steak
• Used grilled bread that we had on hand instead of focaccia
• Left out the watercress

Recipe: Steak-and-Carrot-Tacos

Steak-and-Carrot Tacos
Food and Wine Magazine, Mar 2019, p.30
4.5 stars

From reading the ingredient list, I wasn't quite sure about this one but it looked like a simple weekday meal -- it was easy and delicious... this will be our new alternative to Alice Waters' Garden Salad Tacos that we love to make.

Ingredients: skirt steak, carrots, tortillas, cumin seeds, extra-virgin olive oil, kosher salt, black pepper

For serving: sour cream, cilantro, jalapenos, lime wedges

Tips:

• Definitely will use a marinade for the meat next time
• We used regular large carrots; will use small multi-colored ones next time (especially if we serve this to guests)
• Great with a margarita!

Dinner Idea: Bleu-cheese Stuffed Steak; Artichoke, Leek and Potato Gratin, Mixed Greens and Pear Salad

Please excuse the plating.

Having guests over and can't think of what to serve?  We made this lovely dinner last weekend, and it was hit.

Bleu Cheese-stuffed Filet Mignon

• No recipe link here.  We basically made a mix of high quality bleu cheese, freshly ground peppercorns, a little lemon zest and salt and stuffed the filets with it.  Salt & pepper the filets, sear them on the grill and finish them in the oven.

Arugula and Pear Salad with Mascarpone and Toasted Walnuts

• This is a deconstructed salad (see the photo on the epicurious.com website).
• Used mixed greens instead of arugula.  Using a combination of both would be perfect.
• Used half the amount of oil and lemon juice.

Artichoke, Leek and Potato Gratin

• Used gruyere (one of my favorite cheeses)!

Recipe: Gordon Ramsay's Beef Wellington (photos & videos)

Per request, here are a few photos and videos to show how we made the Beef Wellington recipe (see the blog post on Dec 18th for a link to the recipe).

Lay prosciutto on cling wrap



Spread mushroom paste over the prosciutto

Roll the prosciutto & mushroom around the seared filet mignon

Wrap the filet mignon in puff pastry

Wrap the filet mignon in puff pastry (cont'd)
Then score the pastry

Voila!

Recipe: Gordon Ramsay's Beef Wellington

Our perfect Beef Wellington
on the 1st try

After watching Hell's Kitchen for so many years (I don't even know how many seasons it's been on) and watching the crazy contestants make Beef Wellington during just about every dinner service, we decided to look for Gordon Ramsay's recipe and make it for our guests last night.  While going against our rule of making a recipe for the first time for guests, we decided to give it a try (plus, our foodie friends were open to being our guinea pigs).

It was one of the most impressive, mouth-watering, craveable beef dishes we've made, and I can't wait to make it again (let alone eat the leftovers tonight).  What's tricky about the recipe is that the filet is wrapped in puff pastry, so it's easy to under or overcook it. 

Interestingly, the beef is wrapped in Parma ham (or prosciutto) and has a mushroom paste surrounding it -- both of which aren't completely detectable if you were tasting it blind.

Here is the recipe, and I've included the conversions below:

http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/164868/Gordon-Ramsay-s-beef-Wellington

400 g = 0.88 lb

750 g = 1.6 lbs

500 g = 1.1 lbs

Try it -- you'll like it, or rather love it!

I love beets; and my first souffle ever!

I went through the Nov's Food and Wine Magazine and saw the recipe for Roasted Beets & Carrots with Goat Cheese Dressing.  We made it last night with steak & frites and will definitely make it again!  We cut the recipe by half and also skipped step 4 since I didn't want to eat the beet tops.  I love beets.
http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/roasted-beets-and-carrots-with-goat-cheese-dressing

For dessert, I wanted to try my hand at making a souffle.  It was success, and my souffles rose!!!!  So exciting.  We did a quarter of the recipe for this one since I only wanted to make 2. 
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Warm-Milk-Chocolate-Souffles-with-Vanilla-Ice-Cream-107329

Tonight, I'm going to make a Parmesan & Gruyere Souffle.  Yummy!