Scotch Fillet with Basil and Walnut Pesto, Buckwheat and Roasted Baby Carrots
Serves: 2
Time: 30 minutes
A slight twist on a standard steak and salad dinner. This is also a really funky way to present your steak if you are having people over for a BBQ or just entertaining. I often struggle with the appearance of steak because it’s not pretty but is fabulous to eat and most people love a good steak so they are generally a safe option as a crowd pleaser. So an easy way to make steak look great is to slice it up and present over a salad or on top of a rustic sauce. The pesto tonight doesn’t have cheese in it because I find walnuts have a lovely rich flavour so I am running without parmesan for this one but go ahead and add some grated parmesan if you feel like it is needed.
Leftovers
This recipe produces lots of buckwheat but we don’t have steaks much for dinner so it is just a salad for lunch which I have added some tomatoes and cucumber too.
What you'll need
1 1/2 cups of buckwheat
400g scotch fillet steak
1 bunch of baby carrots
1/2 bunch flat leaf parsley
1/2 bunch of basil
4 tablespoons of roasted walnuts
120g baby spinach
From the Pantry
olive oil
salt and pepper
Optional Xtra For Lunch
1 packet of cherry tomatoes
1 small cucumber
Feeding Four?
You will have extra steak and baby carrots in the shopping list.
Prep and Cook
Preheat Oven to 180c
Take Steak Out
Take the steaks out of the fridge and remove any packaging, to allow the steaks to come up to room temperature.
Cook Buckwheat
Rinse the buckwheat in a sieve under cold running water.
Pop it into a large pot with 1 1/2 litres of cold water and a large pinch of salt and bring up to the boil. Then turn down to a high simmer and continue to cook for 10 minutes.
Strain once cooked then spread out over a baking tray to cool down.
Cook Carrots
Use a clean tea towel to wipe off any dirt from the carrots then slice the carrots in half lengthways and remove the stalks.
Toss in oil with some salt and pepper and spread out on a tray lined with baking paper.
Roast for 15 minutes. You still want the carrots to have some crunch.
Prep Salad
Finely shred up your baby spinach, wash and roughly chop the parsley, add half the parsley to the buckwheat and reserve the rest for the pesto.
Add the spinach but reserve some to go with lunch.
Roughly chop 2 tablespoons of walnuts and add to the buckwheat.
Make Pesto
Combine the parsley, basil and walnuts with 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a small food processor with a large pinch of salt and blitz until it resembles a chunky pesto.
Pan Fry or BBQ
Weather you cook your steak on a BBQ in a griddle pan or just in the fry pan your method will still be the same, make sure your surface is really hot to start cook for 4 minutes each side without turning and always rest before you slice.
Cook Steak
Generously season both sides of the steak with sea salt and cracked pepper and rub some olive oil or spray over both sides.
Heat a medium-sized pan to high and just before it gets to smoking point lay your steak in and cook for 4 minutes each side.
Remove from the heat and allow to rest for 5 minutes before you carve into thin slices.
Plate it Pretty
Take some buckwheat out and set aside for lunch. Then combine all the salad ingredients together and toss with a splash of olive oil and some salt and pepper.
Scatter the salad across the base of your serving platter, avoid piling too high.
Lay carrots over the buckwheat and try not to look too uninformed when you place them.
Place the carved steak on top and splatter with pesto.
Enjoy!
Lunch tomorrow
Lunch tomorrow is going with cherry tomatoes instead of baby carrots and steak; you could always add some tuna - you know me - I like tuna with everything.
In hindsight, put the cherry tomatoes in before the basil and spinach so that they don’t make your greens soggy.