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Barney's tips for the perfect steak sandwich:

  • As you won’t be using a steak knife, you need a cut that’s tender enough to bite through easily without pulling the rest of the steak with it and that still packs flavour - for me that’s a thin-ish trimmed sirloin. If sirloin breaks the budget, then a battered out rump is a good option, too.
  • By leaving the steak to rest on the bread and using a robust loaf like ciabatta, we’re letting all the flavoured meat juices soak into the bread without it falling apart
  • Rubbing the steak with a red wine vinegar helps season it, and adds flavour to the juices it releases as it rests on the bread.
  • Rather than pairing the overpowering flavour of sliced raw onions with beef, I prefer griddling them in the beef juices to caramelise and impart some of the meaty flavour before they go into the sandwich
  • Not all salad leaves are equal and I’ve purposely chosen to go with two types for their different merits. Little Gem brings crunch and succulence, and watercress or rocket bring peppery flavour.
  • Cheese with steak isn’t to everyone’s taste (though it’s a must in an American steak sandwich) but I love the spiky tang of blue cheese with beef.
  • You can turn the bread into more of a bruschetta than simple toast by griddling it then rubbing with garlic for extra flavour.

Units:

For the sauce

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Nutrition: Per serving

  • kcal1166
  • fat63g
  • saturates21g
  • carbs76g
  • sugars12g
  • fibre7g
    high
  • protein69g
  • salt3.5g
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Method

  • step 1

    Mix all the sauce ingredients together with a good grind of pepper and a pinch of salt and set aside. Put a griddle pan over a high heat. Drizzle the cut side of the bread with 1 tbsp of the olive oil and griddle, pressing the top of the bread down, until the cut side is toasted and lightly charred in places. Remove from the griddle and rub the toasted side of the bread with the cut garlic. Spread the bottom slices of the bread generously with the sauce.

  • step 2

    Keeping the griddle over a high heat, rub the sirloin steaks with the vinegar, then generously season with salt and pepper and drizzle with 1 tbsp of the oil. Get your extraction fan going or open the back door or window and griddle the steaks on high for 1-2 mins on each side for rare-medium or 3 mins on each side for cooked through. As soon as the steak is done to your liking, lift onto the sauced slice of bread to rest and allow the bread to soak up the juices.

  • step 3

    Meanwhile, drizzle the onions with the rest of the oil, then griddle, pressing them down with a spatula for 3 mins on each side until charred. Lift them off and separate them into rings over the steaks, then crumble over the cheese, if using. Lay the tomato slices on top followed by the watercress or rocket, then finally the Little Gem leaves. Spread the top slices of bread with the rest of the sauce and close the sandwiches with them. Press down lightly, cut in half, if you like, and serve.

Barney Desmazery
As Good Food's longest-serving team member, Barney has written and tested thousands of recipes, worked with many of Britain's top chefs and created videos, live events and masterclasses. After gaining a chef's dipolma and working in restaurants across London, France and Australia, he joined Good Food, where he specialises in sourdough baking, foraging, seasonal ingredients and open-fire cooking. Barney has also published his own cookbook One Dish Four Ways. See Barney’s recipes.
Barney Desmazery chef headshot

Recipe from Good Food magazine, February 2023

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