Steaks without a grill! ...and in a flash?

Steaks without a grill....crazy I said, CRAZY! Steaks must be done on a grill, preferably on a charcoal grill, although in a pinch gas will work. Well a couple years back due to my LOVE of Nigella Lawson's writing and her food show I purchased her book: Nigella Express, (I also own How to be a Domestic Goddess, of which I am sure you will hear more of in the future).

So I wanted to cook a nice dinner for my bf and I wanted to include steak. So I turned to Nigella to find some inspiration. She flash cooks a steak in a frying pan and then post-cook marinate it. My first attempt at the recipe was not all that successful however in the post analysis I realized that getting the proper cut of meat is essential. In Sunshineville there is no local butcher, which means trying to find Although I have recently heard of a few places that I need to check out (one of which is Home Grown). Luckily however there is a Bristol Farms near by and I thought well they should at least have higher quality meat and potentially more choices than the pre-packaged cuts at other grocery stores near by. Well I went into the Bristol Farms after 9:30pm and there weren't too many people in the store. I honestly wasn't sure when they closed. The butcher counter looked closed since they had covered most of their meats for the night. But there was a nice guy behind the counter that asked me if I needed some help. After a little bit of an pleasant but awkward exchange with him (I was exhausted and not processing at top speed) I walked out with about 2 lbs of nice looking rump roast.

The following night was cooking night! I mixed up the post-searing marinade in a pie plate (recipe below) and I sliced two steaks off my rump roast about 1 in each. They looked small but knew with everything else we were having they would be enough. I brushed each piece with some olive oil on each side of the steaks and place them in a hot pan (no oil added here). I let the steaks cook about 2 minutes each side and then another minute on each side.The steaks should be fairly rare, the marinate will finish the cooking. Next place each steak place them in the marinate and let sit on each side for 2 minutes. Serve with sides of your choice!

Rough Recipe: Lemon Marinade (Inspired by Nigella Lawson's Lemon and Thyme Marinade)

Olive Oil

Lemon juice (equal amount to the olive oil)

Lemon zest

garlic cloves crushed

sea-salt or kosher salt

fresh ground pepper

thyme (fresh is better - although all I had at the time was dried)

Mix the above mentioned ingredients in a shallow dish (a pie plate works well). When steaks have cooked (they should be rare) place them in the marinade for 2 minutes each side.

To wrap up, I would like to say that if lemon and beef seem like a strange combination, I urge you to try it before knocking it. It is is different to be sure, but in a delicious refreshing sort of way. It does only work with thin steaks however; don't try post-marinading a huge T-bone! Also for all of you who may not think ahead when it comes to dinner, the post marinading trick means you can have steak even if you didn't have the forethought (or a working time machine!) to started marinading steaks in the morning or the night before. Not to say that every steak eaten needs to be marinaded!