Australia’s favourite home cooked meal is steak and vegetables. This recipe shows you how, with a bit of planning, you can transform your run of the mill meal into something special.

The secret ingredient is of course a good quality beer. Beer is an incredible ingredient to use in marinades. It not only improves the taste, it also makes meat healthier by reducing harmful heterocyclic amine levels. The stronger flavour of steak is enhanced with a stronger flavoured beer like scotch ale. Blue cheese is a great food match and combining it with butter allows it to melt into the grain of the steaks as you eat it. The butter can be made days ahead, if necessary, and then refrigerated.

Blue Cheese Butter

• 50gm butter
• 50gm blue cheese
• 1 tablespoon chopped chives
• pinch black pepper

Method

1. Allow the butter and cheese to soften at room temperature and then combine all ingredients using a fork.
2. Form the butter into a 5cm (2 inch) long roll on a piece of non-stick baking paper or cling wrap.
3. Wrap the roll up and place into refrigerator.
4. To serve, cut into four slices and place one onto each steak.

Steaks

• 4 scotch fillet steaks (or what ever cut you prefer)
• 1 stubbie scotch ale (such as Red Hill)
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons black pepper
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 lime, juiced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Method

1. Combine all marinade ingredients and add to steaks in large zip lock bag. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours or preferably overnight.
2. About 20 minutes before you are ready to cook, remove steaks from marinade and let marinade drain. This allows them to come to room temperature before cooking, and prevents them steaming from the excess marinade.
3. Brush steaks with oil and place on hot grill or pan.
4. The thickness of the meat and how well you want it cooked will determine cooking time. As a guide, 2 minutes a side for rare, 4 minutes a side for medium, and 6 minutes a side for well done. The steak will feel soft if when rare, slightly firmer and springy when medium, and very firm when well done.
5. Remove steaks from grill and set aside, covered loosely with foil. They should ‘rest’ for roughly the same time as they spent cooking.
6. Serve with a slice of blue cheese butter, your favourite vegetables, and a glass of scotch ale.

Enjoy!