Summer calls for something grilled and something that is light. Why can't we have both?
I've been hankering for both.
It has been ages since I've had grilled steak with that phenomenal mocha steak rub that I first saw in Dallas and Melissa Hartwig's book It starts With Food: Discover the Whole30 and Change Your Life in Unexpected Ways. If you haven't made this steak rub, what are you waiting for? One bite of that juicy mocha rubbed steak and you will be converted for life!
For best results, I like to rub a generous amount of the rub and then tightly wrap the meat in plastic wrap and let it sit in the fridge overnight. That gives the steak plenty of time to absorb all those flavors.
Before you throw your meat on the grill, make sure that it warms up to room temperature. That way you won't have your steak curling on the hot grill. Since I prefer to grill with actual charcoal, I will place the wrapped meat outside on a little side table to warm up while the coals are getting ready.
I use a different set of timing for grilling than what is given in the link for the mocha steak rub. My way is to grill the steak for five minutes on one side, flip it, and then grill it for four more minutes.
That way the steak gets a nice char on the outside, and is juicy pink in the middle. (Of course, if you like your steak more well done, let it sit on the grill for another two or three minutes longer. But make sure to let the meat rest before you cut into it!)
OK. The steak was all done, and it tasted divine. But I wanted to wait awhile before cutting into it for the mason jar salads. By the time it cooled down, I was not going to be interested in doing more food prep. So I decided to wait for the next day.
Before I could start assembling the mason jar salads, I needed to make a suitable dressing. I was getting a hankering for some chimichurri, as it goes great with grilled steak. In fact, it goes great with a lot of things.
However, I ran into one little snag. I had forgotten to add fresh parsley to my grocery list. Fortunately, I did manage to find a small bunch that had been sitting in the freezer since the Cat Revolution (an obscure Lithuanian phrase ~ kačių revoliucija ~ meaning "a very long, long time ago).
For the chimichurri, I finely chopped up the bunch of frozen parsley, as well as a bunch of fresh cilantro. I threw everything in a bowl and added the following:
- about two teaspoons of dried Mexican oregano
- about five cloves of minced garlic
- one finely minced jalapeño pepper
- some fine sea salt
- several good cranks of Timut black pepper from Nepal
Then I poured in some extra virgin oil oil and some Pinot Grigio vinegar. Because I was using the chimichurri as a dressing, I wanted it to be less thick. That would have called for a tad bit more oil and vinegar. However, because I used up the last of my extra virgin olive oil, I thinned down the mix with some avocado oil.
After tasting the mix, it was all set to go.
I divided the mixture among five quart-size mason jars. (And only after I finished doing that, I realized that I forgot to take a pic of the chimichurri in the bowl. So I took a pic of it sitting in the bottom of a mason jar.)
Layering all the salad ingredients was the next step. The trick with making mason jar salads is that the ingredients that come in contact with the dressing at the bottom are going to be ingredients that would hold up to prolonged contact with that acidic liquid. That's why is always makes sense to have your next layers be something like onions and your protein.
Here are the layers that I used:
- chopped scallions
- slices of grilled steak
- crumbled feta cheese
- chopped red bell pepper
- sliced peaches
- blueberries
- tiny salad tomatoes
- baby spinach and arugula mix
And there you go!
Bon appétit!
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