Spiced Steak & Garlic Salsa Verde with Roasted Fingerlings and Cheesy Kale Chips

October 19, 2017:  For my 19th meal from Chefs Plate, I selected the Spiced Steak & Garlic Salsa Verde from their weekly changing roster of meals.  All ingredients from the Chefs Plate meals are farm-fresh ingredients from local Canadian businesses and designed to be balanced and nutritious.  The sole reason I wanted to try making this dish was because it featured cheesy kale chips as one of its sides!  I love cheesy items and this kale chip was something that I had never made before but I knew it was something that would delight my taste buds.  Thus, despite it being steak — I try to refrain from eating too much red meat nowadays — I selected this plate as one of three plates from Chefs Plate this week.

Package of ingredients, recipe card, and steak

Everything needed to make a good steak dinner/lunch!

Nutrition facts

The curly parsley was in its own plastic box packaging

This Spiced Steak & Garlic Salsa Verde with Roasted Fingerlings and Cheesy Kale Chips plate had a difficulty level of “medium” and a prep time of 30 minutes.  It was a multi-step process to cook this delicious meal but it wasn’t too difficult as long as you prepped and organized your produce and ingredients beforehand.

Recipe card with all the steps

First of all, the oven needed to be preheated and the garlic and curly parsley minced and chopped.  The fingerling potatoes needed to be halved and the curly kale leaves torn into two-inch pieces and ribs removed.

Finely chopped curly parsley

Finely chopped curly parsley and minced garlic

Halved fingerling potatoes

The fingerling potatoes were  seasoned and roasted in the oven for a total of no more than 20 minutes.  They were seasoned with half of the Salvador Spice Mix, half of the garlic, and two teaspoons of oil, and seasoned with salt and pepper.  They needed to be stirred halfway until they were crisp and tender.

Seasoning the potatoes and baking them

Next, cook the steak.  Before that though, make sure to season it first with the remaining Salvador Spice Mix, salt, and pepper.

Canadian raised beef with no hormones or antibiotics

After seasoning

Cooking that steak and then laying it aside to rest

The next part was my favourite because it was to roast the cheesy kale chips!  The curly kale leaves had to be coated with the parmesan cheese and two teaspoons of oil first.  Then, we spreaded them in an even layer on a baking sheet (we used tin foil instead because we found in a previous meal that baking sheets tend to burn very easily in our oven) and baked on the upper rack for 4 to 8 minutes until they were all crispy.

Mixing the curly kale with cheese and oil

Laying them flat and ready for the oven

Almost ready to eat!

It was interesting to see the field of lush curly kale leaves turn from bright green to a dark green and super dry and crisp pile of individual leaves after the brief stint in the 450°F oven. XD

All done! The kale chips are dry and crispy

Cooking remaining garlic with the steak sauce

Lastly, before plating the meal, the garlic salsa verde had to be mixed.  Using the pan that was used for cooking the steak, we heated up one teaspoon of oil and added the remaining garlic to it to cook until aromatic.  Then we added the curly parsley, red wine vinegar, and one teaspoon of oil (notice how a lot of oil was used — you can probably substitute this one with olive oil to be healthier).  Seasoned with salt and pepper and that was the sauce that you drizzled the steaks over with!

Making the sauce for the steak

Ta-da!  A very good meal with an extra delicious side. ^_^

Plated!

I loved the cheesy kale chips ❤

Needless to say, the best part of this meal for me was the cheesy kale chips.  I couldn’t believe how well the cheesy kale chips turned out!  They really were baked to a crisp and flat and dry like regular (potato) chips.  It was my first time enjoying homemade chips at home.  I loved these!  The slight coating of parmesan cheese and oil made each individual kale chip so flavourful and delicious.  I was addicted.  Some leaves were more dense so they weren’t as crispy but still incredibly delicious.  Yummy!!

The roasted fingerlings were good and tender.

All of this made two servings

Medium rare steak

The steak wasn’t truly “spiced” for me; the Salvador Spice Mix wasn’t really spicy if that’s what they intended it to be.  The steak itself was cooked to a nice medium rare which made it great for a tender chew and not too rough.  However, I didn’t think that this was the freshest piece of steak that we had enjoyed from Chefs Plate — and we have enjoyed quite a few previously.  I say this because I noticed after the meal that I had an incredible amount of gas… sorry for the TMI.  I didn’t think that the steak was very fresh…  Anyway, the garlic salsa verde sauce was very good and provided a good acidic component to the meat and carbs.

I would say this was a great meal nevertheless.  Now I know how to make kale chips at home!  The question though is whether I would make them or just eat them in a more healthy fashion?  Hmm…

As I always do when ending these Chefs Plate blog posts is to inform you about the 4 free meals that you can get from them if you use my code, #freeplatesfromstenoodie, on the chefsplate.com website or you can click here to automatically receive the 4 free meals in your shopping cart when the tab/window on your computer opens.  Happy cooking, Canadians!