Jul 4

Jul 4 Steak with Salsa and Charred Cucumber Salad

This salad paints a rainbow with summer produce. I love to add charred cucumber as it gives it a lovely sweet flavour whilst keeping all its juicy texture.

This fresh and vibrant combination works wonderfully as an accompaniment to pan fried steak.

You can make the salsa a day ahead if you like and just cook the steaks and cucumber when are you ready to eat. Make sure you take the salsa out of the refrigerator 20 minutes or so before you want to serve, so it can come up to room temperature.

If you have children like mine who are not too keen on chilli, simply divide the mix in half and add the chilli to one portion - just remember which one it was!

Method

Unwrap your steaks and leave them to come up towards room temperature a bit whilst you prepare everything else.

Char the sweetcorn. Heat the grill to its highest level, rub the corn cobs with a little olive oil and place under the grill. Turn each time they get colour, until they are cooked all the way around. You are aiming for them to be blackened but not burnt. Remove from the grill and allow to cool a little.

When the cobs are cool enough to handle, cut the corn from the cob by standing it on it’s flat end and running a sharp knife down the cob just inside the corn.

Leave the corn until it is completely cooled before adding it to the rest of the salad.

Meanwhile, finely chop the shallot and chop the peppers into fairly small dice. Destone and peel the avocado and cut into small pieces, along with the tomatoes. Chop the coriander and chilli.

Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl, reserving a small amount of the coriander. Add the oil, lime juice and sugar and season to taste.

Give the salsa another good stir, cover and leave to stand while you cook the steak and cucumber.

Peel the cucumber and cut into 4 pieces lengthways. Leave to one side.

Rub a little oil into each of the steaks and sprinkle both sides with flaky sea salt and ground black pepper. Heat the pan until it is smoking hot and cook for 1 minute on either side, turn and cook for another minute on the other side.

Turn the heat under the pan down and cook for another minute on each side. Remove from the pan and leave to rest on a warm plate.

With the heat still on, add the cucumber slices to the pan and cook for 1-2 minutes on each side until they are charred. You can move them around the pan a bit so they pick up the flavours from the steak. Turn off the heat.

If you haven’t already added the sweetcorn to the salsa, add it now.

Divide the salsa between your plates. Cut each cucumber slice into four pieces and place on top of the salsa.

Thinly slice the steaks and pile on top of the salsa. Sprinkle with a bit of extra coriander and serve.

Ingredients

4 x 180g sirloin steaks

Flaky sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Rapeseed oil to rub on the steaks

Salad

2 fresh corn on the cob

1 eschalion shallot

1 green pepper diced

1 orange pepper diced