Tuesday Night Grilling

I fired up the grill last night and made a trio of improvisations: Flatiron steak "escabeche", grilled eggplant salad, and grilled bananas with raspberry coulis and sour cream.

For the steak: marinate a flatiron (from our cow) in red wine vinegar, chipotle, garlic, salt, and freshly ground cumin, coriander, and black pepper for an hour or so, then grill it over a high fire until medium rare. After letting it rest for 5 minutes, slice it thin across the grain and put it back in the dish with the marinade. Add chopped cilantro and some lime juice, mix well, and serve.

For the salad: slice the eggplant lengthwise into pieces about 1 cm thick. Brush with oil and grill over a medium-hot fire until nicely browned and somewhat softened (don't turn it into mush). Coarsely dice the grilled pieces and mix them with diced tomatoes, minced red onion, fresh parsley, white balsamico, good olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Serve at room temp.

We accompanied the steak and salad with a green salad and some corn on the cob.

For dessert: Slice two bananas in half, grill them flesh-side down over a medium fire for a couple minutes, then turn them over and move them to a cooler section of the grill. Let them stay there for 5-10 minutes, until they soften and the skin is black. Remove from the grill and let them cool. To serve, remove the peels, arrange two halves on each plate, spoon over raspberry coulis, put a blob of sour cream in the center, and sprinkle a bit of sugar over the top.