Protein Power

In keeping with my goal to go higher in protein during at least one meal, I prepared one of my personal favorites: Steak Tartare. I’ve been off red meat almost completely for several months, but I decided this was a good way to kick off a powerful protein diet. I made a small salad of tomatoes and cucumbers with a lemon vinaigrette to start with. Then I finely chopped some garlic, parsley and red onions, mashed a little bit of anchovy I found in the very back of the fridge, bowled up some roasted tomatoes and Worchestershire sauce, sauteed some mushrooms, and daubed a little whole grain dijon mustard on a plate. From the store I bought some top round sirloin, very lean. I seasoned around 6 ounces with a little sea salt and stuck it in the freezer for about 10 minutes. I diced the very cold and firm meat into cubes and ran it through my meat grinder on a medium grind setting (I know the purists want to finely chop the meat by hand, but I went the grinding route, sue me). I formed the ground meat into a thick patty and pressed a well in the center. Into the well I laid an organic egg yolk. It made for a very pretty plate, I thought. After the salad I sprinkled the various condiments onto the patty and the yolk and used my fork to fold over the raw ground meat until everything was well combined. It tasted awesome, and pretty gourmet for workout fuel.

Not something I’d do very often. I still want to make red meat a rarity in my diet. But nothing wrong in being a little decadent in the pursuit of health and fitness.