The Sandwich/Salad Combo

I don't eat a lot of red meat in general. I'm not the biggest fan of hamburgers (it's the texture), roasts, or most cuts of steak. However, once in a blue moon I get a carnivorous craving that just won't quit until a piece of juicy red meat has passed through my lips. That craving happened to hit me the day after the 4th of July. Rather that just grill a steak, I instead chose to get a little more creative and make a steak sandwich. I didn't want anything cheesesteak-esque, no "shaved" meat. I wanted to sink my teeth into the steak when I bit into the sandwich, the bread serving as the perfect vessel for sopping up all of those delicious juices.

Ina Garten's recipe for a steak sandwich was a sort of diving off point, although I ended up using a tri-tip steak instead of a ribeye because it was much cheaper. Since a tri-tip cut has a lot of connective tissue, I marinated the steaks for two hours in olive oil, garlic, and soy sauce to tenderize the meat before it went in the grill pan. After I grilled the steaks to medium-rare and let them rest for 10 minutes, I sliced the steaks (against the grain!) into strips and placed them on ciabatta that was smothered with a sauce I made out of mayonnaise, dijon mustard, lemon juice, and one of my favorite pantry staples, Piment d’Espelette.

I love all varieties of potato salads. I typically lean towards the vinaigrette-style versions favored by the French, but there's nothing like a good, old-fashioned, mayonnaise-based, "everything-but-the-kitchen-sink" version I grew up eating in my Oma's kitchen in Aledo, Illinois. I found a recipe on Smitten Kitchen's website that belongs to Roseanne Cash, of all people, and it ended up being the perfect accompaniment to my sandwich. Pop open a bottle of crisp IPA and it's good eats all around.