Lady Gaga Beefsteak, lychee and sheep’s milk cheese salad with green mango achar and lime dressing

J'veux ton amour
Et je veux ton revenge

You cannot possibly imagine how good this is. I do not have Nigella’s vocabulary, but I’ll try.

So, I have decided to take better food photos. And yes, not perfect, but much better than previous attempts:

I’ve mentioned in a previous post that blood-rare beefsteak salad is my favourite ‘alone’ food. It is quick, easy and really very... VERY good. I make a different variation every time.
Due to the lots of rain we had Angel had to postpone her birthday party and Lamb and I couldn’t make the new date. Lamb & Image went to visit grandma, so I was home alone.

Part of Angel’s gift would have been the most delicious sheep’s milk cheese I picked up in Smithfield in the Southern Free State. The Smithfield farmer who produces these cheeses is a woman and she won loads of prizes for this cheese. It is called Ovis Angelica – heavenly sheep’s milk cheeses. As Angel’s Angelical Sheep’s Milk Cheese went into my salad – alas, only the inedible part of her birthday gift survived.

So here’s what went into J. Hardspear de la Azotea’s Man Salad for 1 hungry man. *I’m a free BASTARD baby!*

1 large thick cut rump steak. We South Africans love our rump steak. It may not be as tender as rib-eye (The Americans like this one), or fillet (tenderloin), but it definitely s’got loads more flavour and if you do not overcook it, it is tender enough. The Brits & Jamie Oliver agree with me on this one

MARINADE (PAPArazzi)
grated rind & juice of 1 lime
half a teaspoon grated fresh ginger
crushed clove of garlic
sprinkling of Thai Seven Spice
1 table spoon of soy sauce
1 table spoon of sunflower oil

Marinade the steak in this for 15 mins. Take out and pat dry with kitchen towels. Heat cast iron griddle pan till very hot (the air should start making waves above the pan). Sear the steak for about a minute or two on each side and put in a clean plate to rest.

THE SALAD (Oh boy you’ve left me speechless!)
I used a bag of mixed leaves containing a mix of mild- and strong flavoured schtuff – butter lettuce, radiccio, rocket etc.
skinned and pitted fresh lychees
carrot shavings
spring onion

THE CHEESE (Retro Dance Freak)
Ovis Angelica’s Labneh cheese. Labneh is a Middle Eastern yoghurt cheese. It is formed into small balls and preserved in bottles filled with oil. It has a soft crumbly texture and tastes very creamy and ever so slightly acidic.

THE DRESSING (In your brown eyes)
The juice of 1 – 2 limes
1 table spoon of green mango atchar + extra little bit of the oil from the atchar. (In South Africa we call Indian Pickles – Atchar)
1 table spoon of soy sauce
Mix well

Assemble the salad in a large flat serving dish, carve the meat in thin slivers, add the juices which collected in the plate to the dressing and drizzle dressing over. The combination of crunchy leaves, tender, near raw strips of meat, the delicate fragrant translucent white flesh of the lychees, the creamy cheese and the piquant, astringency & sourness of the dressing, makes for a most satisfying experience of tastes, textures, flavours and aromas.

I had a bottle of Jacobsdal Pinotage during the preparation and consumption of this salad. This salad is best eaten with your body sprawled on the couch with the serving dish on your chest, fork in one hand, glass of wine in the other and your big toe operating the DVD remote on the coffee table. Preferably a lekker Action or SciFi movie playing. I watched Inception and thought it to be a really good movie.

“En soos Tibbie sê: “Hierie wyn is Goddelik!”

Alehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhandro! Do you know you love me boy, hot - just like Mexico!

I am decidedly drunk now, so with dick in hand I salute you! [Telephone – Lady Gaga & Beyonce together is enough to make me come in my Hemishphere cut-off jeans.] My chest (and tummy) may be too big for Truworths man but my waist ain’t not!!