Has it ever happened to you that you grilled too many steaks for your BBQ party, and then your guests who were supposed to eat them all just switch to cocktails and you end up with cold pieces of meat sitting around and wait for better times? Normally, it shouldn’t be the case, of course. But sometimes one can go a little overboard and sear with a spare. Stakes are high when it comes to steaks: we don’t want to lose anything along the way. So one way to deal with this situation is to reheat the meat. And it’s the easiest way. But to tell the truth reheating is unlikely to yield the same results texturewise. It’s not a bad thing per se, but it’s better not to bother at all and leave it as is. What? Eating a cold piece of meat!?
‘Absurd’ – you might be thinking, but think steak salad instead. It doesn’t really matter to what degree of doneness you had brought your steak the day before. Of course, we know that rare or medium-rare simply end up having more juices than a well-done. But even if you went all the way, you still can simply take your favourite sharp knife out and start “cooking” by thinly slicing your cold piece of meat. It’ll be even easier to cut into such a piece because all the fats inside would be in solid state.
And the hardest part is over. What’s left to do is slice some plants as thin as possible and dress everything really nice. With a dressing of course, not with a dress.. You’ll need one long cucumber – the best way to deal with it is to use a mandoline – its razor-sharp blades are perfectly suited for a job like this. Combine sliced cuke with half of a thinly sliced napa cabbage head – use a sharp knife for this task. Now mix juice from 2 limes, 60 g / ¼ cup rice vinegar, 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil and 1 Tbsp. sesame oil with 1 tsp. red chili flakes, salt and pepper. Toss cabbage and cucumber with the dressing, add some roasted peanuts if you want and mix everything with your sliced steak. Nice, vibrant, zingy Japanese-style salad is ready.
Want something else? Not a big deal. You can easily divide the leftover steak in two parts and combine it with some corn from the can and salsa verde. Or more classic arugula, cherry tomatoes, goat cheese and balsamic vinegar. Or calorie-dense avocado, blue cheese and red onion. You get the idea!
What do you think?