antipinkkitten This week, we are going to finish out our tour of Europe, with traveling to Northwestern Europe, sampling a simple dish of Grilled Steak with Raspberry Sauce and Asparagus.
However, before we get to that – it’s been a wild last couple of weeks. As mentioned on social media, we announced the birth of our little guy, Terry. He’s a healthy baby boy, who came into the world just as crazy as you would expect from us. He’s healthy, I’m healthy and we’re all excited for this new chapter in our lives and with the blog.
The simple pleasures of Britain
We joke a lot on this blog and the podcast that England doesn’t have great food. Boiled meats, bland dishes, etc. A lot of this comes from the idea that the British Isles is not home to a lot of ingredients. Often, it’s joked that the reason why the British attempted to conquer the world was to get better food.
While I’d like to agree with this statement due to my love of Tikka Masala; England is home to many great ingredients.
The first bit of history we need to explore is simply: Why does mainland Europe and the British Isles share so many ingredients? It goes back to how everything was laid out, with the last land bridge submerged, known as Doggerland, during 6500–6200 BCE. This means prior to this point, people easily migrated following the herds, across the continent, bringing new foods, and what eventually became domesticated livestock, with them.
This is where the basis of this meal comes from. The simplicity of just grilling beef and eating asparagus. Where they become more interesting, comes from the additions that would have come from those evolving from hunter-gathers, to settlement-forming/early farmers.
These individuals would have started to produce goods like cheese, butter and with it, enhanced dishes with additional flavors and styles. With that, we find that extraordinary dishes can exist in these time periods, with little-to-no effort.
Grilled Steak with Raspberry Sauce
Ingredients
Raspberry sauce
- 1 pint of raspberries
- 2 tbsp of honey
- 1 tbsp of butter
Steak
- 1.5kg of Ribeye Sirloin steak
- Salt
Asparagus
- 4 cups of Asparagus tips
- 4 tsp of butter
- Salt
Instructions
Raspberry sauce
- Place the raspberries into a stock pan and cook at low heat.
- Once the raspberries start breaking apart and releasing juices, add honey.
- Once mixture is mostly seeds and juices, add butter. Stir on low heat.
- Take a small sieve and mush sauce through it into a jar.
- Save to serve with steak and other uses.
Steak
- Cut ribeye into desired portions.
- Salt both sides of the cold steak, rub in.
- Place steaks on grill, warmed up to 400 degrees Fahrenheit (204c).
- Grill to preferred rareness (medium rare is 5 minutes on each side, direct heat).
Asparagus
- Place asparagus tips in foil packets, adding a tsp of butter on top, sprinkling salt.
- Place foil packets on grill, to the side of the fire.
- Cook for 15 minutes.
Reviews
Meghan’s Review
5 out of 5 stars
I adored this recipe. I’m not a fan of red meat, but since the pregnancy, I have had to eat more of it. If all of my previous meals had been this; I would have complained less. The raspberry sauce adds an extra “wow” to the steak and the asparagus is light – a perfect pairing to a summer meal.
Brad’s Review
5 out of 5 Raspberries (Stars)
Let’s be honest, tonight’s meal was something that you could go to a normal restaurant and order today, maybe except for the raspberry sauce. That a fancy restaurant would charge you $75 for it. The steak and raspberry sauce together was a surprise for me. The only problem I had was that you had to get quite a bit of the sauce to taste it over the steak. But nevertheless it was an amazing meal.
