The Meatwave

Grilled Spicy Filet Mignon Salad with Ginger-Lime Dressing

Grilled Spicy Filet Mignon Salad with Ginger-Lime Dressing View Recipe

Excitement was in the air on Tuesday after work. After spending the winter trying to get on the Hellgate CSA, then being wait listed, and finally being accepted, the first distribution day was at hand. For those who are unfamiliar with a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), here's how it works: A community of people pair together with a local farmer who provides fresh fruit and produce for the members once a week. So we get whatever is in season on the farm, and this week's share included red salad bowl lettuce, curly cress, oregano, radishes, leeks, and mizuna. Mizuna, hmmmm, never heard of that one before... So the gf went on a search to find a recipe that would utilize this salad herb, and low-and-behold, she found something that included 1/2 of this week's share, plus called for a nice steak on top. What can't she do?

Mizuna

So what is Mizuna anyway? It's a Japanese mustard green mostly found in Asian salads that, based on the recipes we found online, seem to often be paired with seafood. As you might have come to realize, I'm not a big salad eater. I can only recall two occasions where I've ordered a salad in a restaurant, but really, if there's an $8 salad and an $8 burger staring at you on a menu, how can you ever pick the salad??!? Although we make salads a bit more often at home, I still never feel full on a bowl of leafy greens. It seems no matter how much salad I eat, I find myself digging into some chips or a bowl of ice cream later in the evening, which totally voids any attempt I had made at eating healthy. So when this salad recipe popped up on my gmail chat, I was a little skeptical, but then realized it called for an entire filet mignon to be thrown on top, and I was totally in.

Filet Mignon

Filet Mignon

Not only did this recipe call for a steak, but it included an easy, short marinade, great for weeknight grilling (and I'm always looking for good weeknight recipes). It was only one hour from mixing ingredients, to letting the steaks marinate, to grill time. Filet mignons grill up nice and fast too. I had rather small ones, about 1 1/2 inches thick, and they only needed 3 mins per side for a perfect medium rare. Not to waste the heat, I also grilled up the leeks from the CSA share, but more on that at a later date.

Filet Mignon Salad

After a 10 min rest in some foil, I sliced these up on a bias, maximizing the pink juiciness in each piece. The gf was in charge of the salad and she did a great job. It looked more appetizing (even without the meat) than most salads I've come across. Both the salad and steaks alone were quite tasty, but put the two together and you have something special. The steaks had a nice spiciness that played well with the citrus dressing. My palate isn't refined enough to really pick out the flavor of the mizuna, but I could tell that there was something in there working more than the lettuce, giving it a more earthy and complex flavor than I'm used too. So for not being a salad eater, I found myself oddly enjoying this meal very much, and guess what? It's almost my bed time and I haven't had the urge to eat anything else, score 1 for the salad.

Print Recipe

Grilled Spicy Filet Mignon Salad with Ginger-Lime Dressing

  • Yield 4 servings
  • Prep 15 Minutes
  • Inactive 45 Minutes
  • Cook 6 Minutes
  • Total 1 Hour 6 Minutes

Ingredients

  • For the Ginger-Lime Dressing
  • 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
  • 1 tablespoon soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon finely diced shallot
  • 1 tablespoon finely grated fresh ginger
  • 2 teaspoons sugar
  • 2 tablespoons peanut oil
  • Salt and freshly ground pepper
  •  
  • For the Steak
  • 3 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
  • 1 tablespoon chili paste with garlic
  • 1 tablespoon peanut oil
  • 2 (12-ounce) filet mignons
  • Freshly ground pepper
  •  
  • For the Salad
  • 1 head read salad bowl lettuce, torn into bite-size pieces
  • 3 cups mizuna leaves, torn into bite-size pieces
  • 1/4 cup chiffonade Thai basil or regular basil, optional
  • 1/2 English cucumber, halved and cut crosswise into 1/4-inch thick slices
  • 2 carrots, julienned
  • 5 radishes, thinly sliced
  • 8 each yellow and red cherry tomatoes, halved
  • Salt and ground black pepper

Procedure

  1. To make the dressing: Whisk ingredients together in a small bowl. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Set aside.
  2. To make the steaks:Whisk soy sauce, lime juice, chile paste, and peanut oil together in a small bowl. Place steaks in a zip lock bag and pour in the marinade. Toss the bag to fully coat the steaks, and then let marinate for 30 minutes in the refrigerator. Remove from the refrigerator 15 minutes before grilling.
  3. Light 1 chimney of charcoal, and when lit, pour out onto grate. Remove steaks from marinade and pat dry. Season both sides with pepper and grill for 3 minutes per side or until slightly charred and cooked to medium-rare doneness. Remove from the grill, cover with foil and let rest 5 minutes, and slice into 1/4-inch thick slices.
  4. To assemble the salad: While steak is resting, combine all salad ingredients in a large bowl. Toss with half of the dressing and season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a platter, top with the steak, and drizzle the remaining dressing over the top.

Adapted from Bobby Flay

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Comments

  1. megc Josh, this was a great post! Beautiful pictures, too. Glad you were able to do something with the mizuna. I ended up just eating it in a salad, but I have more so I might do something meaty with it. Would it be alright if I posted one of your images to the Hellgate CSA blog? I'll credit you and link back for sure. Thanks! --Meg Cotner, Hellgate CSA blog editor

  2. Josh Yup, you're free use my photos and/or blog posts on the Hellgate Blog anytime. The CSA will keep me busy cooking with more to share :)

  3. megc Thanks so much, Josh!

  4. whoops Apparently you left the ginger out of the ginger-lime marinaide you featured on this page... Whoops.

  5. whoops Apparently you left the ginger out of the ginger-lime marinaide you featured on this page... Whoops.

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