Dinner on the hill, June
My favourite things at my favourite place: steak with braised white beans, a punchy green chutney, and a crunchy sprout slaw. Here are some things you might want to cook this weekend...
If you know me (hi 👋🏻 ) you’ll know my favourite thing is to cook and eat dinner with friends, up on the hill behind our house.
And while in theory (and practice) it’s easier to entertain inside where there’s a kitchen and all your things, it’s just more fun, more delicious, and more special outside.
Here's a menu from a recent dinner up on the hill. I hope you try it, enjoy it, and have some fun cooking outside soon. It could be using the barbecue at your local park, a fire pit at home, the barbecue on your verandah, whatever!
Thanks and happy cooking, Sophie x
Coriander and cashew chutney
Brussels sprouts, apple and herb coleslaw
White beans with chorizo and a herby, garlic butter
Barbecued scotch fillet steaks
Coriander and cashew chutney
This recipe is closely based on one given in Bee Wilson's truly excellent book The Secret of Cooking.
Wash two bunches of coriander thoroughly, roughly tear them, and pack into your blender or food processor (including the roots). Add 2 tbsp brown sugar, 1 cup salted cashews, 1 tsp turmeric, 1 green chilli roughly chopped (seeds and all) and the juice of one lemon. Blitz until you have a rough sauce. Check the flavour—does it need more sugar or acidity? Maybe a little salt? Store in the fridge or freezer and use on everything.
Shaved Brussels sprout salad with green apples and toasted hazelnuts
This is a great salad; fresh, crunchy, and bright, it's the perfect accompaniment to richer braises and comfort foods. This might make more than you need on the night, but it keeps nicely in the fridge for a day or two and makes a good lunch (with a boiled egg, perhaps, or a bit of fried bacon or chorizo if you have it in the fridge).
Serves: 4
600g Brussels sprouts, trimmed and finely sliced
2 tart cooking apples, unpeeled and very finely sliced, then cut into matchsticks
1 handful (about 50g) hazelnuts, toasted and roughly chopped
1 handful (about 20g) parsley, roughly chopped
1 handful (about 20g) mint, roughly chopped
For the dressing:
1 tbsp (20g) wholegrain mustard
Juice and zest of one lemon
1/4 cup (60ml) olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
To make the dressing, whisk all ingredients together until well combined, then set aside. Combine all the salad ingredients in a large bowl. Toss with your hands to make sure everything is well mixed. Drizzle with the dressing just before serving and toss again to coat evenly. Tip into a nice salad bowl and serve.
White beans with chorizo and a herby, garlic butter
Prep time: 15 mins
Cook time: 3½ hours
Serves: 6–8
3 cups (585g) dried cannellini beans, soaked overnight
1/3 cup (80ml) olive oil
1 tbsp sea salt
2 brown onions, peeled and quartered
1 large fennel bulb, trimmed and cut into eighths (reserve fronds for later)
4 garlic cloves, unpeeled
2 cups (500ml) chicken stock or water
2 tbsp thyme leaves
1 cup (100g) grated cheddar
Start with the beans. Drain after soaking, then rinse and place in a large saucepan. Fill with enough water to cover the beans by 3cm. Add a couple of tablespoons of the olive oil and the salt. Cover and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat as low as possible and cook for 1–2 hours, or until the beans are tender but not falling apart. Drain and keep warm until needed.
For our picnic up on the hill, I transferred the beans to a big food thermos (this is the one I use) to keep warm.
For the butter
250g unsalted butter, softened
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp chilli flakes (or to taste)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 tbsp rosemary leaves, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and mix with a wooden spoon until well combined (or use a food processor to blitz everything together). Place on a piece of baking paper and roll the flavoured butter into a sausage shape. Twist the ends to seal and pop in the fridge until needed.
To finish
1 cup chicken stock or water
2 chorizo sausages, chopped into small dice
1 lemon
Olive oil, to drizzle
Place a large frying pan (ideally cast iron, if you're cooking outside over a fire) over medium-high heat and add a few generous glugs of olive oil.
Tip in the beans and the chorizo. Add the butter—start with half of the amount we made and add more if you think it needs it. Stir well so the butter melts into the beans, then add the stock or water, stirring as you go.
Finish with a good squeeze of lemon juice, check the flavour and add more lemon or salt if you think it needs it. Finally, a drizzle of olive oil and we're ready to go!
For the steaks
I can't give an exact recipe here because your steaks might be a different cut and size from ours. Plus, cooking over fire isn't an exact science, and we all like our meat cooked differently. Instead, here are some tips that I hope will help.
Always start with room-temperature meat.
We use a barbecue from Pig and Pilgrim. It was a 40th birthday present for my husband some years ago (for which we are forever grateful), and has been the best thing. We use it all the time; it’s light and easy to move around and has been a total winner for us. There are loads of other options for building your own fire/barbecue set-up.
Go for a nice thick steak—thin ones can cook too quickly, and you might not get that nice contrast between the salty crust on the outside and lovely tender pink middle. Ask your butcher to cut them for you at least 3 cm thick.
Salt your meat well on all sides before cooking. With steaks, I usually try to salt about an hour before cooking. So when you bring them out of the fridge to come to room temperature, sprinkle well with sea salt and set aside (covered with a plate or bowl). This helps the salt penetrate the meat, improving flavour, juiciness, and browning.
A general rule of thumb is to rest your steaks for half the time you cooked them. So if cooking out over fire, don't forget to pack foil for resting.
If you do barbecue quite a bit, I do recommend investing in a meat thermometer. I've wanted one of these for years now, and we finally bought one (a joint birthday present for my husband Tim and me!), and it's absolutely fantastic.
If cooking outside during autumn and winter, here at least, barbecued meat can get cold very quickly. This is why I always like to serve it on a bed of something nice and hot. So in this case, we've got our hot beans. You could also do a ratatouille, polenta, a chickpea braise, or anything nice and tasty and hot that will be a sauce and a sort of edible 'hot water bottle' for the meat.
I like to slice our steaks thickly and serve them over the hot beans. Before slicing, dress the chopping board with a good pinch of sea salt, a good drizzle of olive oil, sea salt and perhaps some finely chopped thyme or rosemary. Then as we slice, we toss the pieces on the board so the meat’s juices mix with the seasonings.
What have I missed? I'd love to know what tips you have to share about cooking outside, over fire.
Oh, and while the steaks are cooking, why not pass around a jar or tin of cheese biccies? The perfect starter with a cold glass of bubbles or anything. There’s a recipe for my favourites here.
I shared a video of this dinner over on Instagram as part of a collaboration with Australian Good Meat. You can see it here.
