Citrus Steak Salad -- #recipe by @LeslieBudewitz

LESLIE BUDEWITZ:  My brother winters in warmer climes and every March, sends us a box of grapefruit and oranges from his own trees. As a kid, I hated grapefruit and couldn’t understand how my mother could stand to eat it, let alone consider it a mid-winter treat. Turns out kids generally don’t like bitter tastes. It’s thought to be an evolutionary thing. Some bitter tastes come from toxins and humans used them to detect what was safe to eat and what wasn’t. Kids are thought to have a higher sensitivity for bitterness for that reason. 

Thank goodness most of us grow out of it! 

In addition to fruit salad and fresh-squeezed juice, I got a hankering for a citrus-infused steak salad. We found several recipes and combined them. Using a plastic or silicon bag to marinate the beef makes for easy cleanup, but you can certainly use a washable silicon bag or a glass container if you’re limiting your plastic use. 

One inspiration recipe called for skirt steak, another flank. Use what you like and can find. The marinade is low on the heat scale; red chile paste tends to add flavor, not heat, depending on the variety you use. 

This is a fun salad any time of year, but especially for northerners craving a taste of warmth when winter is taking its time to leave. 

Citrus Steak Salad 

For the marinade and steak:

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup or more fresh orange juice

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1 tablespoon fresh ginger, peeled and minced 

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 tsp. Asian red chile paste (we used Sambal Oelek)

1 to 1-1/2 pound flank or skirt steak, about 1/2 inch thick, cut into 2 or 3 pieces

For the salad and dressing: 

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

1-2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

8 ounces baby arugula leaves, romaine, or mixed greens

1 large orange or grapefruit, peeled and sliced crosswise

2 tablespoons sliced green onions or chopped red onion (optional)

½ cup crumbled feta

chopped cilantro (optional)

½ cup toasted pecans (for garnish)

In a sealable plastic bag or a glass container with a cover, combine the soy sauce, orange juice, 2 tablespoons lime juice, ginger, garlic, and chile paste. Seal and shake to stir. Add steak. Shake or stir to coat the steak with the marinade. Refrigerate 4-6 hours. 

To grill outside, remove steak from marinade and grill over medium, turning once, until medium rare (typically 4 to 6 minutes). To cook inside, heat a large frying pan over medium-high and cook 3-4 minutes a side. Transfer to a platter and let rest 5-10 minutes.

While the steak is resting, make the dressing and assemble the salad. In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil and 2 tablespoons lime juice. Place the greens, grapefruit, onions, feta, and optional cilantro in a flat salad bowl or on a platter. Slice the steak crosswise in 1/4 inch strips and add to bowl. Dress and mix well. Serve with pecans in a small bowl for garnish. (Keep nuts separate from salad in case of leftovers, so they don’t get soggy.) Alternatively, arrange on individual plates, topping with the steak (as shown) or with the steak, cheese, and pecans.  

Serves 4.

Wishing you a warm and tasty dinner, no matter what the weather!

BETWEEN A WOK AND A DEAD PLACE: A Spice Shop Mystery (July 2023, Seventh St. Books)

From the cover: 

It's the Lunar New Year, and fortunes are about to change. 

 

Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle's Pike Place Market, loves a good festival, especially one serving up tasty treats. So what could be more fun than a food walk in the city's Chinatown–International District, celebrating the Year of the Rabbit?

 

But when her friend Roxanne stumbles across a man's body in the Gold Rush, a long-closed residential hotel, questions leap out. Who was he? What was he doing in the dust-encrusted herbal pharmacy in the hotel's basement? Why was the pharmacy closed up—and why are the owners so reluctant to talk? 

 

With each new discovery, Pepper find herself asking new questions and facing more brick walls. 

 

Then questions arise about Roxanne and her relationship to Pepper's boyfriend Nate, away fishing in Alaska. Between her worries and her struggle to hire staff at the Spice Shop, Pepper has her hands and her heart full. Still, she can't resist the lure of the Gold Rush and its tangled history of secrets and lies stretching back nearly a century. 

 

But the killer is on her tail, driven by hidden demons and desires. As Pepper begins to expose the long-concealed truth, a bigger question emerges: Can she uncover the secrets of the Gold Rush Hotel without being pushed from the wok into the fire?

Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Spice Shop Mysteries set in Seattle's Pike Place Market, and the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, set in NW Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody, standalone suspense, most recently Blind Faith. She is the winner of Agatha Awards in three categories: Best Nonfiction (2011), Best First Novel (2013), and Best Short Story (2018). Between a Wok and a Dead Place, the 7th Spice Shop mystery, will appear in July 2023. 

A past president of Sisters in Crime and national board member of Mystery Writers of America, Leslie lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their cat, an avid bird-watcher.

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