Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Let's Get Asian with Teriyaki Steak & Rice

One thing that really caught my eye when we were in whole foods, looking in the deli/meat section was this garlic teriyaki skirt flank steak. It was so bright, vibrant, and really did look like great quality. I LOVE me some teriyaki anything;however, I have never prepared it at home. Now, I am going to apologize for no pictures, I just didn't think, again. <_<

Well this was really quick and easy to prepare. I sliced the three pieces of steak into bite size pieces, and set them aside for the moment. I like to use the easy to boil rice in a bag, I mean I can make some good rice risotto style and pilaf style, but let's be honest, the easy boil bag rice was made for a reason and is convenient. When I get into a risotto mood though, best believe I'm nurturing it like a baby, and putting all that love and care into it. ;)

Well I got my rice boiling, two bags of brown rice. While that was boiling, I started to cook my sauce.

 For the sauce I combined
 1/2 cup of soy
1/4 cup of water
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon honey
1/4 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon sweet chili sauce
a dash of cayenne

I combined all ingredients over medium heat until sugar was dissolved, while this was mixing, and the rice was boiling, I small diced a whole onion and sweat them out in a large pan until translucent.

 Side note- if you are going to taste the sauce be very careful, as melted or dissolved sugar is extremely hot!

After the onions were translucent, I added the rice to that pan, and then added the sauce. I mixed everything very well, and let it sit or simmer, so it would still be warm, but not continue to cook on the stovetop while I prepared the steak. You can taste the rice and season to taste with salt and pepper, go light on the salt because the soy adds quite a bit already. I also added some more minced garlic to the rice mix, but I love lots of garlic.

I started by getting a dry pan really hot, and then threw in the steak. I got a nice color on the steak pieces, front and back, and then lowered the heat to a 4 on my stove, my stove tends to be hotter than most, so a medium heat would do just fine. The trader joe's teriyaki steak had a sauce on it, but the paper it was wrapped in pulled a lot of it off, which made me sad, but I added more fresh garlic, salt, and pepper to the steak while it cooked. You can cook it to your preferred doneness, but I love my steak medium rare.

 Side note- If you have never tried medium rare steak I highly recommend it. I was super iffy on it at first in school when our Chef made us try all the temperatures because the red freaked me out. It is the best way in my opinion to have steak, it keeps the taste and integrity of the meat, it is juicy and moist (Yeah that sounds totally nasty lol ), ok but you get what I mean right? It is still warm in the center, but red, once you can get over the red I swear you'll be so happy I told you to try it! An over cooked steak just ruins the meat!

Ok, so after I cooked it to a nice medium rare and seasoned it, I ended up mixing it in with the rice on my plate, but keeping them separate when storing leftovers. It was very tasty and a nice change to our usual dinners. Also since Chris works nights, we don't always get to eat together, so some nights i'll cook and we eat separate, but I really like it and prefer when we cook together and eat together. This was a nice easy dish that I could cook after work and when Chris reheated it, he loved it, and said it reheated well in the microwave, which is always good to hear involving steak. Typically steak dries up and doesn't reheat that well, but he said it worked out well!

 

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