Colm O'Gorman: Striploin Steak with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

Whatever the weather, I plan to eat some barbecue-style food this weekend. If it is too wet to cook outside, I will cook in my kitchen. 

I love to barbecue, but I am not that much of a fanatic that you will find me stooped over the grill outside under an umbrella in the rain. When the weather is that bad, I move inside and create some of the same flavours in my kitchen.

My roasted red pepper sauce is perfect with barbecued or grilled meats. This recipe will give you a little more sauce than you need; any leftovers will keep in the fridge for up to a week and you can have it with have some roast chicken or on pasta. 

Thanks to the addition of chipotle paste and some smoked paprika, it has some heat and is a little smokey, so it will give you some of those barbecue flavours even if you are cooking indoors. 

You will find chipotle chilli paste in most larger supermarkets; Tesco and SuperValu both stock it so it is readily available.

In this recipe, I show you how to roast your own red peppers. It is very easy, and they taste amazing. If you prefer you can use roasted red peppers from a jar and roast the garlic and red onion in the oven or in a dry pan for ten to twelve minutes until they are soft.

Use a good-quality steak if you can, dry-aged Irish Angus striploins or rib-eye are also perfect. Serve with some chips and a simple salad on the side. 

For the salad, use fresh leaves and some thinly sliced roasted red pepper. Toss the salad in some extra virgin olive oil, good balsamic vinegar, and a little flaky sea salt. Keep it simple to complement the steak and this lovely sauce.

Striploin Steak with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

recipe by:Colm O'Gorman

My roasted red pepper sauce is perfect with barbecued or grilled meats.

Servings

4

Preparation Time

 45 mins

Cooking Time

 15 mins

Total Time

 60 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• 2 red peppers

• ½ a red onion

• 2 cloves garlic

• 2 tsp honey

• 1 ½ tsp dijon mustard

• 1 ½ tsp chipotle chilli paste

• ½ tsp smoked paprika

• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar

• 1 tbsp Greek yoghurt

• Pinch of sea salt

• 4 Irish Angus Sirloin steaks

• To Serve:

• Chips

• A green salad

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 190 Celsius. Wash the red peppers, place them in a roasting tin and pop them in the oven for thirty minutes. Cut the half onion into two pieces. When the red pepper has been roasting for fifteen minutes, add the onion and the cloves of garlic to the roasting tin for the final fifteen minutes. There is no need to peel the garlic cloves, just pop them in the tray as they are, so that you can easily squeeze the lovely roasted garlic from the skins once roasted.

2. After thirty minutes in the oven the red peppers should be soft, and a little charred and blistered all over. They will be very hot, so carefully remove them from the roasting tray and put them in a large bowl. Cover the bowl with cling film and set aside for thirty minutes. This will allow them to cool before you handle them, and help to further soften the peppers and make them very easy to peel.

3. Take the steaks out of the fridge and let them sit at room temperature while your peppers are cooling.

4. When the peppers have cooled enough for you to handle them, remove them from the bowl and pull out the stalks. Peel away the skin and remove the seeds. You will be left with soft, sweet roasted pepper flesh.

5. To make the sauce, place the roasted peppers into a food processor. Add the roasted red onion and squeeze the roasted garlic out of its skin into the processor bowl. Add the honey, dijon mustard, chipotle chilli paste, smoked paprika, olive oil, red wine vinegar, Greek yoghurt, and a pinch of sea salt. Blitz on high speed until you have a smooth sauce, this will just take a minute or two. Taste and add some ground black pepper and more salt if needed. Set aside.

6. Time now to grill the steaks. Season the steaks just before cooking them, using just a little flaky sea salt. If you are cooking these on a barbecue, get your grill good and hot, and pop them on. If you are cooking them indoors, use heavy based non-stick pan or griddle. Get the pan very hot over a high heat. If I am cooking ribeye steaks, I never use any oil as the steaks have plenty of fat, but striploin has a little less fat so add just a tiny amount of olive oil to the pan, just enough to lightly coat the surface. If you use too much oil it will inhibit the development of a lovely, seared crust on the steak. Pop on the steaks and reduce the heat to medium.

7. I like my steaks medium rare, so I give them two to three minutes each side until they have a nice crust, and my meat thermometer tells me they are at around 55 degrees Celsius. For a rare steak, aim for 45-50 degrees, for medium go for 60 and for well done, 70 degrees. Take the steaks off off the grill when they are a few degrees shy of the temperature you want and then let them rest for at least five minutes before serving. Season with some fresh ground black pepper. Resting the steak after you take it off the grill is critical. It allows the juices in the meat to redistribute throughout the steak. If you cut into the steak straight off the grill, all those juices, and all that lovely flavour, will flow out and be lost.

8. When the steaks have rested, serve them with a small bowl of the red pepper sauce, some chips and salad on the side.