Stuffed rolled bavette, tomatoes and balsamic excerpted from Seared: The Ultimate Guide to Barbecuing Meat by Genevieve Taylor. Photography by Jason Ingram.
Seared is a one-stop-shop for recipes and practical advice that will help you get the most from cooking meat on your barbecue, beginning with the science of why we need to cook different cuts in different ways and the physics of how fire works.
Divided into two sections – BEAST and BIRD – and into SLOW and FAST within those sections, live-fire cooking expert Genevieve Taylor covers everything you’ll ever need to know about buying and cooking all kinds of meat, from steaks and fillets, to whole joints and whole birds, and looking at techniques from brining to marinading, smoking to braising, searing super-hot and low and slow cooking.
Genevieve provides essential information about setting up your barbecue, sourcing your fuel and lighting your fire and setting up your grill, with troubleshooting tips throughout. Full of succulent, colourful recipes, Seared is the most useful, practical and comprehensive guide to grilling meat on the market.
Seared: The Ultimate Guide to Barbecuing Meat is available at Amazon.com and Indigo.ca.
Stuffed rolled bavette, tomatoes and balsamic
I would classify bavette, or flank, as one of my top three steak cuts, the perfect balance between flavour and tenderness. Here a whole bavette is treated more like a roasting joint, stuffed full of tasty things and rolled up porchetta-style. Then you slice it through to cut across the all-important grain to give you succulent slices. For me, with an abundance of gloriously sweet ripe tomatoes, this is high summer eating at its absolute best.
Serves 4–6
1kg (2lb 4oz) bavette steak
80g (3oz) prosciutto
60g (2½ oz) ‘nduja
60g (2½ oz) Parmesan, freshly grated
a bunch of basil, leaves torn (about 30g/1oz)
2 tbsp capers
1 tbsp olive oil
flaked sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the tomato salad
750g (1lb 10oz) really ripe mixed tomatoes, sliced
a bunch of basil, leaves torn 3–4 tbsp best quality balsamic vinegar
3–4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
You also need 8–10 x 25cm (10in) lengths of butcher’s string
‘Butterfly’ out the steak, opening it up into a thinner layer and effectively doubling its size. Lay the steak on a board and press the flat of your hand firmly onto it to apply downward pressure. Use a really sharp knife to make a horizontal cut through the middle, using short slicing strokes like you are filleting a fish. Stop when you are a couple of centimetres from the other side and open it out like a book into a large flat rectangle.
Turn the steak so the grain of meat runs horizontally from left to right – this will ensure that you slice across the grain when you come to serve. Lay the slices of prosciutto onto the steak, covering it as much as you can, then dot the ‘nduja over the top. Sprinkle with the Parmesan, basil leaves and capers and finish with a generous grind of pepper.
Starting from the side nearest you, roll it up tight into a long cylinder. Take the lengths of string and tie at regular intervals to secure the roll tight. Sprinkle salt over the outside and rest on a rack over a tray. Slide in the fridge for 2–24 hours.
When you are ready to cook, fire up your barbecue with two strips of fire down either side (see page 19). Leave the vents wide open. You want a good hot barbecue of around 220–240°C (430–465°F) with an indirect heat down the centre.
Rest the bavette on the grill bars, seam side down, in the centre of the barbecue and shut the lid. Cook indirectly for around 30 minutes, or until a probe reaches about 40°C (104°F) in the centre. Then use tongs to slide the roll directly over the fire and sear over a high heat, turning every few minutes for a further 15 minutes. For a medium-rare steak roll, lift it off the grill when the centre reaches 56°C (130°F).
Scatter the tomatoes over a serving platter and sprinkle on the basil. Drizzle generously with balsamic and olive oil and season with a little salt and pepper. Rest the roll on the centre of the platter and carve into slices.
Recipe reprinted with permission from Hardie Grant Books.