Citrus Marinated Steak on Sweet Potato with Spicy Tomato Relish and Sour Cream

I saw this very briefly on a tv cooking show and went off to find the recipe. Of course, it wasn’t available online unless you paid $35 for a 6 month subscription (yeah RIGHT!) so I made it up as I went along.
The seemingly disparate flavours combine amazingly well, and the sour cream seems to pull it all together at the end.

Of course, it could be made non dairy by leaving out the sour cream (and optional butter)and I think it would still work. If you were to do this I would cut down the heat in the relish, as the cream acts to tone this down at the end.

This is not as much work as it seems – while you need to prepare some stuff ahead of time (the marinade, the relish) it’s a perfect recipe if you’re going to home for an afternoon doing other things anyway. Also, the relish will keep in the fridge for at least a week, so you can always make extra and serve with other dishes.

These quantities serve 2.

Ingredients

• 2 porterhouse or other cuts of steak. Note – don’t use anything too fancy here. The citrus marinade acts to soften the steak before cooking, so a good eye fillet would be wasted on this recipe.
• 2 oranges.
• 1 lemon or two limes.
• 2 cloves of garlic.
• Olive oil.
• 1 sweet potato.
• 3 or 4 tomatoes (if not in season, use 1 can tinned)
• 1 red onion.
• Half a red capsicum.
• 1 red chili (more if you like it spicy)
• 1 tbsp mustard seeds.
• 2 tsp sugar.
• 1/4 cup white vinegar / cider vinegar.
• Sour cream.
• Pepper and salt.
• Butter (optional).

Directions

1. Marinade.
2. Juice oranges and lemon (or lime).
3. Crush and finely chop cloves of garlic.
4. Combine juice and garlic with 2 tsp lemon (or lime) zest, freshly ground pepper and enough olive oil to make enough marinade for your two steaks.
5. Put steaks in marinade and marinate for at least 2 hours, ideally 4 or 5. Turn once during marinating.
6. Relish.
7. Dice onion. Roughly dice tomato and capsicum. Slice chili (deseeded if you wish).
8. Gently fry onion in a little olive oil until softened.
9. Add chili and mustard seeds and cook for a further 5 minutes or until very aromatic.
10. Add capsicum and tomato and stir to distribute through evenly.
11. Add sugar and 1 tbsp salt.
12. Add vinegar to the mix – at this stage, the liquid should almost cover all the vegetables. Add a little water or reserved tomato juice from tin (if using) if necessary.
13. Bring to the simmer and then let it simmer, covered for half an hour.
14. Uncover and let simmer until volume is reduced and the relish has thickened.
15. Have a taste – it should be spicy, sweet and tangy. Adjust seasoning if necessary.
16. Let cool until you are ready to assemble dinner.
17. Sweet potato.
18. Peel sweet potato and cut into thick slices.
19. Place on a baking tray with a drizzle of olive oil, and if you want to be decadent dot with butter.
20. Season with freshly ground black pepper and salt.
21. Put into oven heated to 180 C (350 F) and roast until soft (about 1 hr depending on how thick your slices are).
22. Finally- assembly!
23. Remove steaks from marinade and cook on a grill pan (or flat fry pan). Because they have been in the citrus marinade they are already pre-cooked, so they basically need a good sear on each side to colour it up (nice and brown) and to warm through to the middle.
24. While steaks are cooking reheat relish on stovetop.
25. To assemble, place sweet potato in a little overlapping pile on plate. Place steak on top, then top with a good dollop of the relish. Add a smaller dollop of sour cream on top.
26. And serve!

This recipe was submitted by Imogen on July 5, 2005.