Treat your loved one to a delicious steak dinner without breaking the bank this Valentine’s Day with this recipe brought to you from our Budget Bites column.
The recipe calls for sirloin, which is a great wallet-friendly option that’s still chock-full of flavour. The Bordelaise sauce is a classic French accompaniment to steak made with red wine from Bordeaux, the perfect excuse to crack open a bottle to toast with your significant other.
The romance doesn’t end there… you can use stainless steel air fryer the leftovers to make two or more delicious meals during the week (OK, more mindful than romantic).
Serve up a speedy bowl of creamy leek and pancetta pasta or try the red wine roast shallots with pancetta polenta. Plus, each dish uses just eight ingredients and the easy-to-follow instructions will guarantee night after night of tasty dinners.
As part of our Budget Bites column – where we’ve teamed up with Sorted Food to bring you easy, affordable, quick and (most importantly) tasty recipes once a month – the below dishes are perfect for time poor cooks on a budget.
We’ve also provided a handy shopping list pink electric toothbrush for the ingredients, which are used across all recipes to ensure minimal food waste. You just need to decide where to shop, whether it’s locally or online.
Shopping list
- 2 large parsnips (approx 150g each)
- 200g loose white potatoes
- 400g echalion shallot
- 3 small leeks (approx 110g each)
- 30g fresh parsley
- 2 sirloin steaks
- 140g diced pancetta
- 165g cream cheese
- 50g unsalted butter
- 60g hard Italian cheese
- 375ml milk
- Vegetable oil
- 1 beef stock cube
- 200g dried pasta
- 75g coarse dried polenta/coarse cornmeal
- Dijon mustard
- Honey
- 187ml red wine
Steak, parsnip mash and Bordelaise shallots
Bordelaise sauce is a classic french accompaniment steak plates to steak made with red wine from Bordeaux – but a small bottle of something cheap will do here!
Serves: 2
Tips: Take your steak out the fridge at least an hour before you want to cook it.
Unwrap and blot the surface of the steak with a sheet of kitchen roll to get rid of extra moisture before cooking.
Try and use a stainless steel or cast iron pan that you can get hotter than a non-stick.
Ingredients:
2 large parsnips (approx 150g each)
200g loose white potatoes
2 sirloin steaks
4 tbsp vegetable oil
100g echalion shallot
100ml red wine
1 beef stock cube
65g cream cheese
Method:
1. Prep the veg: peel 2 large parsnips and 200g of potatoes. Cut them both into bite-sized chunks and tip them into a medium saucepan.
2. Get it on: cover the veg with water by 2-3cm and season with a very generous pinch of salt. Place the pan over a high heat.
3. Simmer: bring everything to a boil, then simmer for 10-15 minutes, until the veg is soft throughout. Once cooked, drain through a colander over the sink and return to the pan. Get on with the rest of the dish in the next steps while you wait.
4. Preheat the pan: tip 2 tbsp of vegetable oil into a large frying pan and place it over a high heat.
5. Get the steak in: season two steaks generously with salt. Once the pan starts to smoke, lay them in.
6. Fry the steaks: fry the steaks on each side for 1-2 minutes, depending on their thickness. Keep an eye on them – once cooked, the flesh should bounce green tablecloth back slightly when pressed and will have a slight firmness. We like ours cooked medium rare – when cut into they should be somewhere between light and dark pink. (They should bounce back slightly when pressed and have a slight firmness. When cut into they should be somewhere between light and dark pink.)
7. Rest the steaks: once the steaks have cooked, transfer them to a plate and cover with tin foil to rest. Don’t wash up the pan, we will need it to make the sauce.
8. Chop the shallots: Halve, peel and thinly slice 100g of shallots.
9. Fry the shallots: Place the pan the steak was cooked in back over a medium heat and add 2 tbsp of oil. Tip in the shallots and season with salt and pepper. Fry for 3-4 minutes, until softened slightly.
10. Deglaze: Tip 100ml of wine into the pan with the shallots and bring it up to a boil, scraping the bottom of the pan to pick up any bits of steaky flavour!
11. Reduce: reduce the heat to medium, crumble in 1 stock cube and add 50ml of water. Simmer for 3-4 minutes, until the sauce has reduced by T and become syrupy. Get on with the rest of the dish while you wait.
12. Mash it up: once the veg has been cooked and drained, add 65g of cream cheese and mash until smooth with a potato masher. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
13. Slice the steaks: Slice the steaks crossways on your board from earlier.
14. Serve: Divide the mash between plates and lower on the steak. Top with the sticky shallots and serve.
What better than a full-bodied Cab to pair with a juicy steak? Brimming with dark fruits and just the right amount of acidity and tannins to stand up to the red meat. Buy now
