Darice de Cuba

I have been trying for sometime to perfect my steak sandwich recipe. And I can say I now have a pretty decent one that tastes quite well. It’s all in getting the best products; meat from the butcher, fresh bread and a good sprinkle of smoked paprika.

I always go to the same butcher and order sliced tenderloin. He knows I use them for my steak sandwich so the thickness is just perfect, about 4mm. Then I’ll buy some fresh bread at the Turkish bakery.

Ingredients

• one white onion
• one garlic clove
• fresh button mushrooms
• grounded black pepper
• garlic powder
• smoked paprika powder
• Lea&Perrins
• sliced tenderloin
• fresh bread

How to

• Cut some onion rings
• Mince one garlic clove
• Slice the mushrooms

Cook the onion until translucent, add the meat to the pan, you can cut them before but the meat is so thin it will split while cooking. Add garlic powder(not necessary as you’ll be adding fresh garlic), add grounded black pepper and half a teaspoon spice or sweet smoked paprika. As soon as them eat has seared add the garlic, mushrooms and some Lea&Perrins. Cook on low fire until meat is done and onion is completely soft.

You can warm the bread a bit in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 5 minutes. Then add the steak to the sandwich, if you like it spicy add some horseradish or for more flavor some H&P sauce. But the Lea&Perrins is enough, I would use one or the other but not both.

This steak sandwich is my easy to make and delicious lunch or dinner dish for when I’m not in the mood for extensive cooking or for dinner and movie night. As side dish a cold potato salad goes well with it or some coleslaw.

This is a recipe I came up with while in the hospital. I only had a few channels on TV so I spend hours watching those home shopping program selling kitchen appliances(over and over again same product everyday) and watching cook shows. By no means an original recipes but I went with ingredients I like.

Risotto with stuffed chicken

First make a tapenade/pesto you like, I made one of sun dried tomato, fresh basil, garlic and parmesan cheese with extra virgin oil for some moist. Mix all in a food mixer set aside.

Butterfly the chicken breast, cover with plastic wrap and pound the chicken until it’s thin. Spread the tapenade over the chicken, put mozzarella cheese on top and fold the chicken back, hold together with toothpicks. I also wrapped the chicken in Serrano ham but it didn’t add anything to the taste, next time I will use bacon or prosciutto.

Put some olive oil on the chicken and grill it on the grill pan. Due that the chicken is folded it won’t cook completely on the grill pan so I finished in the oven on 200 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes. The mozzarella melts better in the oven also.

Make risotto with peas, I didn’t had peas so I used chopped sun dried tomatoes. It made the risotto a bit too salty, so this was a one time only. Next time I’ll do my best to get some peas.

This was a quite tasty meal I must say. I enjoyed it till the last bite. I only wish I had a macro lens for my Nikon D70 so I can take more detailed food photos. Most food photo I take with the Ricoh GR, but I prefer dSLR quality for detailed photos.