Brazilian Grilled Steak Salad
My dearest friend gave me a subscription to Sunset magazine a couple of months ago and I have been slobbering all over the pages of the beautiful spring and summer salads, but not making any for fear there simply won't be enough to feed my husband's appetite for dinner. No matter how large of a portion of salad he eats, he always comes up hungry afterward. This salad, however called for a good amount of beef and I said to heck with it---I'm making it...if he doesn't get enough to eat he can have a bag of potato chips (that I purchased specifically for this case)! I'm so glad I chose this salad...it was the grand prize winner this month for the weeknight challenge. The meat was delicious, the flavors of the bell pepper and pineapple rocked. But let me just talk a little bit more about the dressing on this salad. It's so fabulous I could drink it. In fact, I kind of did. Ater we ate our salad, after I ordered some crispy potstickers the next day to dip it in and before I could throw away the last 3 tablespoons, I did sit with spoon in hand and slurped up every last drop. Don't judge. Just know its good. And amen to you TJ Marsh of Tucson--you just changed my life. I only slightly adapted the recipe...letting the meat marinate for a couple of hours before putting it on the grill and adding a little extra ginger and garlic to the meat marinade.
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon honey
5 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce, divided
2-3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 teaspoon finely shredded fresh ginger (I actually used more like a tablespoon, you could do even more if you like ginger)
1 1/2 lbs flank steak, thinly sliced across the grain on a diagonal
1/2 pineapple, peeled, cute into 1/2" rounds
2 red bell peppers, stemmed, seeded, and quartered (I only used one)
Juice of 1 lime
Zest and juice of 1 orange
2 tsp seasoned rice vinegar
1 tablespoon Asian garlic chili sauce
1/4 cup canola oil
8 oz baby spinach leaves
Directions:
In a medium bowl, whisk together honey, 2 tablespoons soy sauce, garlic and ginger. Put steak in a ziplocking bag with marinade and let sit for a couple of hours in the refrigerator. Heat grill to medium (350-450 degrees). Grill pineapple and peppers with lid down until beginning to char, turning once, 3-6 minutes total. Transfer to a plate, cut pineapple and peppers into chunks.
Whisk together lime juice, orange zest and juice, remaining 3 tablespoons soy sauce, vinegar, chili garlic sauce and oil in a small bowl. Set dressing aside. (Do not drink it now)
Oil your grill with grill spray or using tongs with a wad of oiled paper towels. Grill steak with lid down until meat is sizzling and mostly browned, turning once, 2 to 4 minutes total, being careful meat slices don't fall through grate.
Toss together spinach, pineapple, bell pepper, steak, and dressing in a large bowl until evenly coated. You most likely will not need all of the dressing in this recipe for the salad, so drizzle on until it looks good to you. You can save the rest for other uses.