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FIREPIT DIRTY STEAKS
OK so you’ve picked out a beautiful dry aged steak from your butchers, why would you ever even consider just putting it straight onto the coals? Well when you have an air gap when you cook on a grill grate and the fat from the steak drips onto the coals you get flare ups, this burns the steaks and makes for a bitter acrid flavour.... if you remove the air gap by putting the steak straight on some red hot embers, then you get a wonderful smoky sear like nothing else.
You’ll need to pick up a good dry aged inch thick Ribeye or sirloin from your butcher.
A red hot firepit or BBQ grill loaded with quality lumpwood charcoal, or the embers of a hardwood log fire (silver birch is my favourite), please don’t use instant light, briquettes or lava rocks here.
Make yourself up a batch of Dirty Baste for your dirty steak…the recipe is as follows...
2 cloves of garlic, 3 sprigs each of rosemary, thyme and a handful of flat leaf parsley, 3tbsp coarse rock salt, 5/6 tbsp olive oil, an anchovy and a squeeze of lemon juice. Blitz these up in a blender to a bright green paste. Brush liberally onto the steaks as they cook.
Sear for 3 minutes and then flip, baste the seared side generously with dirty baste and cook for another 3 minutes.
This will give you a rare dirty steak, if you want to ensure the steak is cooked how you like use a digital probe thermometer. 55 Deg C for medium rare.
Allow to rest for a few minutes, before getting stuck in, serve with some flame charred red peppers and a green rocket salad.
Marcus
By Marcus Bawdon