Beef fillet steak with seaweed butter
I don’t cook red meat very often, but occasionally I do like to have a good dose of iron intake from a nice piece of juicy steak. I was inspired by Jane Lawson’s Japanese food western style and decided to cook the beef fillet steak with seaweed butter, and served with sweet potato and ginger mash.
Japanese loves adopting western food and use local ingredients like seaweed, miso, wasabi and turn them uniquely palatable for the Japanese. In this dish, simply by adding a block seaweed butter, the sweet yet salty taste of the seaweed fuses through the steak nicely and created a whole new flavour.
On side, I’ve substituted the mash potato by using sweet potato infused with grated ginger, a hint of oriental taste. Mr H, the true-blue Englishman, still preferred his traditional mash potato, and thinks is weird that the mash is sweet. But he absolutely adores the seaweed butter on the steak. For me, I think all the ingredients in this dish harmonies so well, except the ginger, perhaps it is bit overpowering and seems out of context for the western palate. Overall, I love the diversity of this dish, fusion of the east and the west, that’s what cooking is all about – explore, experiment, and discover.
Ingredients
1. 2 x 200g fillet steaks
2. 1 sheet of dry seaweed, – jp. nori
3. 3 tsp seaweed paste (prepared or seasoned) -jp. Nori Tsukudani
4. 100g unsalted butter, softened
5. 1 garlic clove, crushed
6. ½ tsp sesame oil
7. 1 tsp fine chopped coriander’s stalk (cilantro)
Method
Make seaweed butter
1. Combine butter, nori flakes and seaweed paste, and mix well together.
2. Lay a sheet of baking paper on flat surface, spread the butter on top.
3. fold the baking paper in half to cover the butter, then slowly spread the butter evenly until about 5mm thick.
4. refrigerate the butter until firm, or put in freezer (only if ready to be used the next hour or so).
Cooking
1. Heat up a frying pan with drizzle of olive and sesame oil over medium heat.
2. Season steak with salt and pepper, cook for 4-5 minutes on each side for “medium rare”.
3. Remove the steaks, set aside and let it rest.
4. Get the butter out from fridge, cut it in square.
5. Top with seaweed butter, then sprinkle with chopped coriander.
A Table For Two (ATFT) is Billy Law's food blog that features best eats in Sydney and around the world with drool-worthy food photography to salivate your appetite. I also throw in a smidgen of my food and travel photography for good measure. Billy Law also happened to be a contestant on MasterChef Australia 2011. 
This is a real lovely change to the regular mash Billy. Love the ginger addition in this.
hey, R u a chef in life?
I think the sweet potato mash is very creative. In Philippines, some fancy restaurants do substitute french fries to sweet potato fries with steaks.
Denise: No, I am not…
That all looks like one big amazing combination!
I will need 2 helpings of those please
I am very much intrigued by the seaweed butter. Great stuff!