Grilled Porterhouse with Pea Shoot-Cashew Pesto #FoodieReads

Last month, for the Foodie Reads Challenge, I posted about Everything We Keep. I liked it so much, I dove into the sequel. Sadly, I wasn't as enamored with Everything We Left Behind by Kerry Lonsdale*. But, still, I'm sharing because there were a few passages that had me longing for a steak!

On the Page

If you haven't read Everything We Keep, the plot of this book won't make much sense. And, if you have read Everything We Keep, this book won't make much sense in that I almost doubted it was written by the same author. Really. It was that different.

On the other hand, maybe this was a wildly successful book. Everything We Left Behind is the story of the aftermath when James comes out of his fugue state; he is also the narrator whereas the first novel was narrated by Aimee. I could put myself in her shoes easily. My major hang-ups: James was tempermental and adolescent and finds consolation in the arms of his dead wife's sister. Sorry for the spoiler, that just doesn't feel right to me.

On the Plate

"They dine on the lanai under a darkening sky with the heady scent of barbecue in the air. During the meal, talk is lively between his sons and their grandmother and grandfather. Gale and Julian compare their rides on the waves.... In between steaks cooked to perfection and ice cream for dessert, Claire enlightens the table about her travels to Italy" (page 271).

Yep, perfect steaks in Hawaii while Italy is the topic of conversation?!? That's one of my dream dinners. We eat meat, obviously, but don't eat huge portions. So, the four of us shared one grilled porterhouse and I served it with jade rice and pea shoot-cashew pesto.

Ingredients

• 1/4 t fresh ground pepper
• 1 T smoked sea salt
• 4 cloves of garlic, smashed and chopped
• 1 sprig of rosemary, de-stemmed and chopped
• 1/4 t dried sage, crushed
• 3 sprigs of thyme, de-stemmed and chopped
• 2 T red wine vinegar
• 1 porterhouse steak, about 24 oz. (2 inches thick)
• Also needed a cast iron grill pan, oil

Pea Shoot-Cashew Pesto

• 2 C fresh pea shoots
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and pressed
• 1/2 C raw cashews
• 1/2 C shredded parmesan
• juice from 1 organic lemon 
• 1/4 C or so of olive oil

Procedure

Pea Shoot-Cashew Pesto
Place all of the ingredients into the blender. Pulse a few times, drizzle in olive oil, and resume pulsing.  Pulse. Oil. Pulse. Oil.

If you want a smoother, sauce-like pesto, add more olive oil and blend longer; if you want a chunkier pesto, use less oil and blend for less time.  So simple. So fresh. So fragrant.

In a bowl, combine the first seven ingredients and rub both sides of the steak with equal amounts of the mixture. Drizzle each side with 1 T champagne vinegar. Let marinate a couple of hours in the fridge; we did two hours.

Remove the steak from the fridge during the last 30 minutes of marination. Let steak come to room temperature. Heat the grill pan and oil liberally. Pat the steak dry and grill for 2 to 3 minutes. Turn the steak 90 degrees to get the cross hatch grill marks and cook for another 2 minutes. Flip the steak and grill for 2 to 3 minutes. Turn the steak 90 degrees and cook for another 2 minutes. Let steak rest for 5 minutes before cutting.

*This blog currently has a partnership with Amazon.com in their affiliate program, which gives me a small percentage of sales if you buy a product through a link on my blog. It doesn't cost you anything more. If you are uncomfortable with this, feel free to go directly to Amazon.com and search for the item of your choice.

 

Here's what everyone else read in August 2017: here.