Rubbed Beef Fillet with Two Salsas

A recipe to spice up the traditional steaks on the barbecue this summer. Both salsas complement the beef beautifully, yet offer very different combinations of flavour. We suggest keeping a jar of these on hand over the barbecue season – our guess is you’ll be enjoying them on a range of meals!

Prep: 1 hour. Cook: 6 mins. Serves 4–6

Ingredients

Beef

• 800g Quality Mark eye fillet of beef, silver skin trimmed
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano

Pumpkin seed salsa

• 1 cup pumpkin seeds
• 2 large ripe tomatoes, cored
• 1 fresh red chilli, stem removed
• 3 tablespoons chopped coriander
• 3 tablespoons chopped chives
• Oil to thin

Tomato salsa

• 2 very ripe tomatoes, cored and skinned
• 4 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1 small onion, peeled and quartered
• 1 fresh red chilli, stem removed and roughly chopped
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 cup picked coriander leaves, roughly chopped

To serve

• Limes, cut into wedges
• Corn tortilla or tortilla chips

Method

Pumpkin seed salsa

Heat a large frying pan over medium-high heat and add pumpkin seeds. Keep them moving around the pan, cooking until they are lightly toasted. Transfer to a food processor and process until just smooth. Return frying pan to the heat and add tomatoes and chilli. Cook until they are charred all over (remove chilli first and add to food processor). Place charred tomatoes in food processor with herbs and process until a thick purée. Thin with a little oil and season with salt, then place in a small serving bowl.

Tomato salsa

Place tomatoes, garlic, onion and chilli in a small saucepan and cover with water by 2.5cm. Bring to the boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer until ingredients are soft, about 10 -15 minutes. Drain, reserving 1 cup cooking liquid. Transfer to a food processor and process, but leaving the salsa still chunky. Add reserved liquid if necessary to thin. Stir through sugar and coriander and season to taste. Place in a small serving bowl.

Beef

Heat a barbecue plate until hot. Cut beef into 2.5cm thick slices and rub each slice with a little oil and the oregano. Thread beef on to metal skewers, place on hot plate and barbecue for 2-3 minutes on each side for medium-rare beef. Season.

To serve

Place beef skewers on a sharing board or platter with the two salsas, lime wedges and corn tortilla or tortilla chips.

Tips & Tricks

• Rather than skewering the beef you could cook as a whole piece on the barbecue.
• If you like your beef rare, remove it from the refrigerator and allow it to come to room temperature. This prevents a grilled exterior and cold interior.
• Remove silver skin from the beef fillet if not already done by your butcher as it shrinks during cooking.

Nutrition

Serving size: 281 g