Chomp!

By Ron Aiken
July 26, 2013

A Gourmet Steak & Salad Meal For $30!!! What??? Yes!!!

Chomp! knows you don’t have all the money in the world and yet want to eat food that tastes so good you feel like you paid $50 a person at one of Columbia’s best restaurants.

Now, Chomp! isn’t saying you shouldn’t go and do such a thing if you can; in fact, he recently did, wrote about it last week and loved every minute of it.

But one can’t splurge all the time, and sometimes, the best of times come when they’re made special by you, with just your hands and the love in your heart.

And about thirty bucks.

This is Chomp!’s go-to dish, whether its to impress someone or just because it’s a Friday at home after a long week, and it cannot be beaten because it is precisely what most people order when they splurge on themselves while out: a beautifully seasoned steak and a fresh, filling salad.

Here are the items you’ll need. I picked these up at my local Bi-Lo at St. Andrews and Piney Grove Roads, and my tab was $24.58 (I only got one steak, since I was just making this for myself, so you can add another steak, which will put you at about $32. Also, of course, you can adjust your steak dollars in this recipe to suit your own budget.)

Boneless Sirloin Steak: $7.63
Avocado: 99 cents
Pantera Brand Raspberry Vinaigrette Dressing: $2.99 (NOTE: It was on sale. I usually get Ken’s Raspberry Walnut Vinaigrette, which I like better but was more expensive.)
Earthbound Organic Half Spring Mix & Half Baby Spinach salad: $3.49
1 lb strawberries: $2.50
1 container, raspberries: $3.99
1 container, blueberries: $2.99

For the salad, the only work required is skinning the avocado and slicing the strawberries. I pull the little green tops off the strawberries by hand – there’s something viscerally satisfying about how it comes off. For the avocado, I take a sharp knife and cut into the middle, then draw the blade around the outside tracing a circle around the large pit in the middle so I can basically pull it apart in half.

After that, pop out the pit – I usually plop the knife down on it so the blade digs in a little, then gently lift it out – and use a spoon to carefully push the skin away from the meat. Then, slice it any way you like, baby! It’s avocado! It’s delicious in any shape, so throw that schnizz-nazz in there!

Personally, Chomp! likes arranging the fruit and stuff neatly on top to be able to see all the delightful goodness rather than shaking it up, but hey, you do it how you want. Chomp! just digs the curb appeal.

Add dressing to taste.

Above Photo: Look at this thing of beauty! Behold its freshness! Taste its sweet, majestic wonder! NOTE: You WILL have leftover strawberries and blueberries, so bear that in mind. You don’t need to dump all of them into the salad, even though the goober in you wants to. The great benefit of this is that later, when you go for a midnight snack, there is almost nothing as satisfying when you reach in the fridge as pulling out a fresh strawberry or two or three or however many dang ones are left, which is exactly what Chomp! did Wednesday night with an assist from a can of whipped cream he had left over from a previous week’s adventure.

Above Photo: A close up! It’s close up!

Now, for the meat. You will need to use some ingredients you likely already have at home for your steak rub/marinade. With all marinades, the longer you can allow it to soak, the better the flavor absorbs. Sometimes, you just have to wing it with no marinade time, like Chomp! did Wednesday night, and it’s quite all right.

Make your marinade from the following:
Brown Sugar
Soy Sauce
Worcestershire Sauce
Salt (coarse Kosher salt is what Chomp! prefers)
Black pepper
Paprika

Above Photo: Here is your steak, along with the ingredients for the marinade. Keep it simple!

To apply, I splash the front and back of the steak mildly with the soy sauce and Worcestershire, then add the rest in any order you choose, being careful to massage it into the meat tenderly. With this marinade I’m conservative with the salt and pepper and liberal with the brown sugar and paprika, especially the brown sugar. Reason being I want, when I put the steak in my hot pan (or on the grill if you have one), to carmelize those sugars to form a crust on the steak. That’s why for this steak recipe and this one alone I use butter instead of olive or peanut oil for cooking. There’s just something about the butter and brown sugar together just makes Chomp! happy from the inside out. And the smell is wonderful.

Like with the placing of the salad toppings, with the marinade this step, you really can’t mess it up. Just do what feels right to you, remembering all the time that Chomp! loves you either way!

Above Photo: Here’s my steak with the marinade applied. Yours should look something like this. If you have time to marinade a long time, use more soy sauce and Worcestershire. If you don’t, like Chomp! didn’t on Wednesday, use less and rely on that rub and brown sugar for flavoring.

Now, the last bit: cooking the steak. In a pan, I put the flame on medium high heat and get my pan nice and hot before adding the butter at the last minute before putting in my steak. For rare, using a medium-sized steak (about an inch thick, give or take), I’d cook it for three minutes a side. For medium rare, I go four minutes a side. For medium, five, for medium well, six, for well, seven and not a second longer.

Above Photo: Here’s the meat in the pan, with the butter sizzling around it. The aroma is knee-weakening.

Above Photo: Here’s the steak after four minutes and flipped with a nice crust on it.

Allow the meat to rest a good seven to 10 minutes, and you’re ready to eat something truly amazing, delicious and healthy that’s so good for you and so fun to make and eat you’ll be thanking Chomp! when you see him out, should you be so lucky.

Above Photo: The final product! Yum!!!

And as always, if you do make either or both the dishes, send Chomp! a picture and he will print it right here to publicize your awesomeness!

Follow Chomp! on Twitter @RonAiken and on Facebook. Email Chomp! at [email protected]. He even answers his phone sometimes: 803-200-8809. Cheers! 

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