Sunday Supper: Mixing Cultures with Steak Sauces

Since we’ve been eating super healthy all week (Alex snuck a cookie in midway, but I…well, I had absolutely no sugar/junk food!), I was going a bit stir crazy planning on what feast we’ll have on Sunday. I wanted to include a traditional galette des rois since Epiphany has just passed and the interwebs has been flooded with pictures and recipes for the galette. Alex requested steak. I had been dreaming of Jamie Oliver’s peanut sauce for steak since I watched him demonstrate the recipe live in November in Toronto. Overwhelmed with the desire to try all these new recipes and irrational from sugar deprivation, the final menu ended up being a mish-mash of cultures – a little Mexican salsa verde pizazz, a little southern US smoky peanut sauce, and a slightly ritzy Parisian galette des rois.

  

To start, we had a chopped green salad with lots of crunchy veggies and a light citrusy dressing to balance everything. I used a combination of romaine lettuce, radishes, red onions, and radicchio, and the dressing was simply olive oil and freshly squeezed lime, lemon, and orange juices with salt and pepper.

The sauces for the steaks were adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Jamie’s America.

Jamie’s Salsa Verde

Chop together in a food processor or by hand:

• a small bunch of mint leaves without stems
• a roughly chopped up garlic clove
• 4 stalks of green onions
• 2 medium tomatoes – I used a green/brown variety
• a small jalapeno, seeded
• a large bunch of cilantro

To finish, squeeze in the juice of a lime to toss everything together.

Jamie’s Peanut Sauce

• 1/4 cup white sesame seeds
• 3/4 cup shelled toasted peanuts
• 1 tsp. smoked paprika
• 1 tsp. dried oregano
• 1 tsp. cumin seeds (not ground cumin)
• a few sprigs of fresh thyme leaves
• 2 cloves of garlic, smashed up and chopped roughly
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup warm water
• juice of 1 lime
• 1 chopped up jalapeno or green chile, seeded

  

1. Toast in a dry frying pan the peanuts, sesame seeds, thyme, garlic, paprika, cumin seeds, and oregano for a few minutes until it smells nice and fragrant (took me about 5 – 8 minutes).
2. Throw into a food processor with the olive oil, lime juice, and water. Add in the chopped up jalapeno. Process until smooth and shiny. If it’s a little dry, add in a little bit of oil and water at a time until the consistency is thick and still spread-able.

For the galette des rois, I used the recipe by Dorie Greenspan, as posted on Serious Eats. Overall, the dessert surprised me. It’s nothing like the typical cake or tart, but rather just as the recipe describes – almond pastry cream enveloped by puff pastry. The pastry feels light and airy, but the eggs and butter really make it a rich and delightful treat after dinner. I made two 6″ galettes rather than one large 9″ one, and splitting one of the galettes between 5 people, I think I could’ve had seconds! From making the galette, I also think I’ll be experimenting further with pastry cream in the futur – I can see it making a really nice, rich vanilla base for a buttercream for finishing off cakes.