Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Tomato and Grilled Onion Salad with Steak Sauce Dressing

One restaurant where I want to eat before I die is Peter Luger Steak House.

The place is a legend. They dry age Prime beef in their own aging facilities and serve a renowned steak. But I'm not planning on going to Luger's or dying this week, so in the mean time I thought I would try one of their appetizers to go with some ribeyes.

And this one was perfect because all of our tomatoes (except the purple Cherokee) have started yielding some nice fruit and I needed to use some up. We have beefsteak, cluster, and even a few small roma tomatoes.

Tomato and Grilled Onion Salad with Steak Sauce Dressing
Source: Adapted from Rachel Ray's Tomato & Vidalia Salad with Steak Sauce Dressing

Ingredients
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
3 heaping tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon worchestershire sauce
1 teaspoon black pepper, coarsely ground
3/4 cup tomato sauce
2 tablespoon olive oil
3 ea beefsteak tomato, sliced 1/2" thick
2 ea vidalia onion, sliced 1/2" thick
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped

Instructions
Mix together the vinegar, sugar, worchestershire sauce, and black pepper in a saute pan over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture begins to simmer.

Whisk in the tomato sauce. Slowly pour in the olive oil while whisking like you would into a vinaigrette. Set aside to cool.

The original recipe called for raw onions but I had steaks grilling on the Egg and a hot cast iron grate....

I couldn't resist grilling them instead. Plate them and top with some of the steak sauce dressing.

Yeah, this is supposed to be an appetizer but it makes an ideal summer side dish for grilled steak. It's just right as an alternative to the standard baked potato.