At a recent dinner party, we were served Beef Tagliata. An Italian dish of slices of rare steak with shaved Parmesan cheese and rocket salad, it is accompanied by a dressing with rosemary, garlic and lemon. And it was wonderful.

I was so impressed that I had to try making it at home. Served with a bottle of Fitou, this was (and still is) a meal to remember.

Equipment

• Chopping board
• Sharp knife
• Small saucepan
• Vegetable peeler
• Small serving jug
• Small strainer

Ingredients

Steaks

• 1 two-inch thick rib-eye steak (or individual steaks if pan searing)
• Steak rub
• Olive oil (if pan searing)

Dressing

• 100ml Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 2-3 garlic cloves
• Handful of rosemary
• 4 strips of lemon peel
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Rocket salad
• Parmesan cheese block

Method

Cooking the Steak

I cooked the steak on our Big Green Egg. To do this, follow the instructions for doing this in the Reverse Seared Rib Eye Steak blog post. I used the Dizzy Pig “Cow Lick” rub.

The steaks can also be pan-fried (seared) on a hob and wrapped in silver foil to rest. Prepare the dressing and leave it to cool. Sear the steaks, wrap in silver foil and leave to rest for five minutes.

Preparing the Dressing

Make the dressing whilst the steak is cooking in the egg or prior to searing the steaks in a pan.

1. Heat the oil gently in a saucepan until it is warm to the touch.
2. Crush the garlic gloves, and add them to the saucepan.
3. Squeeze lemon peel and rosemary to release flavours, add them to the saucepan.
4. Heat the saucepan contents gently for five minutes, then add the lemon juice.
5. Take off the heat and leave to cool for about ten minutes.
   • If cooking steaks by searing in a griddle or frying pan, do this now, then wrap them in silver foil and rest.

Assembling the Dish

1. Shave some pieces of Parmesan from the block.
2. Carve the beef into slices.
3. Strain the cooled dressing into the serving jug.
4. Serve the beef, parmesan slices and rocket on a plate.
5. Pour a little dressing onto the salad. Allow your dinner guests to add dressing to their beef.

Hints, Tips and Pictures

1. Use a vegetable peeler to shave slices of parmesan off of the block.
2. Add a very small amount of the meat juices into the dressing to give it some extra flavour. The juices will be in the silver foil that was used to wrap the meat, whether searing in a pan or using the Big Green Egg.