Meat and Two Veg!!

My husband always likes coming home to some Western food after spending a week in China. So tonight was no exception (ok, so there was more than two veg!). Everything was cooked on the BBQ. The warm vegetable salad went well with the Australian Angus Beef sirloin steak. It was a joint effort as my husband enjoys using the bbq. First, bbq the vegetables and then the meat. The recipe below is courtesy of Good Taste magazine, September issue. The sweet orange and basil dressing makes this dish of grilled vegies irresistible. A definite repeater!

Warm vegetable and bocconcini salad:

2 small sweet potato (kumara), peeled, cut into 1cm slices
1 red capsicum (red pepper), deseeded, thickly sliced
2 large zucchini, ends trimmed, thickly sliced diagonally
1 large ripe tomato, thickly sliced
1 large red onion, thickly sliced into rings
1 raddicchio, leaves separated, washed (I only used a few leaves per plate)
8 (about 220g) large fresh bocconcini, drained, torn

Dressing:

1/3 cup fresh basil leaves
2 teaspoon sesame oil
2 garlic cloves
1/4 cup (60 ml) olive oil
1/3 cup (80 ml) fresh orange juice

1. Combine the sweet potato, red & green capsicum and zucchini in a bowl.

2. To make the dressing, place the basil, sesame oil and garlic in a mortar and gently pound with a pestle until almost smooth. Add the olive oil and orange juice and stir to combine. Taste and season with salt and pepper.

3. Preheat a large frying pan or chargrill on high (we used our bbq). Pour half of the dressing over the vegetable mixture and toss to coat. Cook the vegetable mixture on the grill for 2-3 minutes each side or until golden brown and tender. Transfer to a plate and drizzle the tomato and onion with a little of the remaining dressing and cook 2-3 minutes each side or until tender.

4. Arrange the vegetables, radicchio and bocconcini on serving plates. Drizzle over remaining dressing.

The Culinary Chase’s note: Oooops! I forgot to buy the bocconcini! No worries as it still tasted great!