Char-grilled Steak, Asparagus and Burnt Sage Butter Mashed Potatoes
Wow it’s hot, I loves it.
This dinner happened one night where I had beef and asparagus lying around and I didn’t know what to do so I figured I would just wing it. You may or may not have noticed I have been doing a lot of asparagus recently, I gotta say, I’m almost over it now. But next time, I’m at the shops and find some nice looking fresh asparagus, I probably won’t be able to help myself again.
Mashed Potato with Burnt Sage Butter
This is for 2:
- 4-5 medium potatoes
- 10 fresh sage leaves
- 1 big pinch of salt
- 80 g of butter
- a few twists of black pepper
- some milk
Peel and cut potatoes into quarters. Cover with cold water, add salt and bring to boil. Meanwhile, add butter to a heated saucepan until the butter foams. Add sage leaves and turn the heat down low. Keep an eye on the butter until it turns brown and the sage leaves crisp. Set aside.
After about 10-15 minutes, test the potatoes but sticking a knife through them. If they fall apart, they are done. BY this point, I usually add the asparagus in to steam a little (see below). Drain the potatoes well. Add milk and using a potato masher (or a fork if you’re hardworking*) until you have the desired consistency. I’d say maybe 1/2 cup but this depends on your potatoes and how you like it. Toss in the burnt sage butter, add pepper and mix. Add more salt if required but it’s really easy to oversalt mashed potatoes so be very careful.
Char-grilled Steak and Asparagus
- 1 piece of 250g – 300 g porterhouse, trimmed of excess fat and sinew
- 8 fat asparagus
Rub the steak with a little bit of olive oil and let it rest. While the potatoes are cooking (I apologise about backtracking), add the asparagus on top of the potatoes to steam for a minute. Turn them upside down and steam the tops for another half a minute.
Heat the char grill until very hot. Add the asparagus and the steak. Turn the asparagus over every minute or so. Cook the steak around 2-3 minutes each side until medium rare (or however you like it, but let’s not cremate it like my mother-in-law does, eh?).
Let the steak rest for 1 minute, before slicing thickly. I find that one big piece of steak is plenty for both of us but we are not great meat eaters. In the picture, I added a couple of slices of sun-dried tomatoes in oil to see how they’d go with the steak and mash. They didn’t.
* If you’re mashing it with a fork, I recommend cooking longer. Less efforts.
