Sometime you just want something simple – this doesn’t really qualify as a recipe, more really just an idea.I bought beautiful purple cauliflower, below (and featured in the poached egg recipe too)
For two: 1 purple cauliflower, 1 small kuri squash, very soft flesh, tender and melts away when steamed. Rump-steak about 150g per person.
All organic produce was sourced from local farms or shops that sell produce from local farms. You really can taste the difference, and you can usually see it too, as locally sourced foods are generally fresher and happier than the stuff you get at your local supermarket. If you buy in season it will likely not be massively more expensive either.
To make:
Prep: Start by heating water to steam your red Kuri. I don’t boil anything if I can help it.
Vegetables prep: Take your beef out of the fridge, remove from packaging, wash and dry the slices and leave to get to room temperature. Cut your red kuri into slices ready to steam. Cut the top florets off the purple cauliflower to make “cauliflower couscous” – leaving the tiniest floret structure intact though, some people use a food processor, I like to control for size by hand, but by all means do what you feel works best.
Cook: Put pumpkin into the steamer basket and cover with a lid. While your pumpkin is steaming, heat a non-stick frying-pan (will take about 15 minutes depending on chunk size) and add the purple cauliflower florets and sautée on medium heat until toasted to the colour you like. Grill the rump-steak. I like it medium rare, or a bit more rare as you can see above, but by all means cook it more. When the meat is done to your liking – approximately 2 minutes on either side for the result above, take it out and rest for 5 minutes approximately.
Plate: Sprinkle your heated plates with cauliflower couscous, add some colourful pumpkin segments and the sliced rump-steak on top. As the pumpkin is juicy tender it adds moisture and I didn’t make a sauce beyond briefly deglazing the pan, however you could of course make a beurre noisette or use the pan juices to make a proper sauce. However, this was a simple weeknight dinner, so didn’t make a massive effort.
Looks great, with the steak cooked to my liking 🙂
Thank you so much – I am glad you like it!
Not surprised you and I like our steak the same way!
Sounds yummy 🙂 I’m in the habit of washing my meat too but my partner laughs at me when I do it. Says it’s a throwback to my childhood in Malaysia.
🙂 how funny, I don’t know, whenever I unpack meat from a wrapper when it’s been sitting in it’s juices or just on one of those slightly absorbent pad thingies there is a very ripe scent there and having worked in a lab cultivating bacteria in fetal calf serum and knowing how much they LOVE it I just prefer to wash any juices away (plus who knows who handled the steaks and whether they wore gloves, or had cuts or what have you..) so perhaps it’s your childhood in Malaysia and my having worked in the lab, but I still prefer to wash it…if it’s good enough for a racoon it’s good enough for us right .:)
My partner has convinced me the other way but I think you’ve swung me back to my original position!
🙂 – if you watch masterchef and ever see any of the merchants handling their produce with rimmed fingernails I think you would swing back to original position. Oh and I worked in a slaughterhouse as a student. Had many nightmares….
😳 does washing meat remove the bacteria though?
Ah – all of them – no never. The free floating ones on the surface though as well as any bits of blood and other matter, yes, as long as the bacteria haven’t had time to make a biofilm (just kidding obviously) on your meat If your meat is packaged in those plastic wrappers there is always a bit of juice at the bottom, that get’s washed off for sure. Naturally unless you work in sterile conditions you’ll always have some “contamination” 🙂 Happy almost Friday
This has been the most interesting stream of comments ever! I’ve learned so much about you! Oh, and great recipe!
Hi Mimi, thank you very much for that lovely comment, I will need to go review the stream of comments. Sunny greetings from arid Arizona. Beautiful landscape here! Poli