Cooking In, Dinner, Quick Post, Whatever WednesdayKerry Alaric CheeseboroFebruary 01, 2013agave, baked, beef, blended, cast iron, cast iron skillet, char, charred, cilantro, Cooking In, Diet Days, Dinner, fresh, fried, fries, garlic, green-go, grill, grilled, gringo, hot, jalapeno, jalapenos, juice, lime, nectar, olive oil, onion, paprika, pepper, peppers, poblano, poblanos, potato, potatoes, powder, Quick Post, ribeye, roasted, sauce, skillet, spiced, spicy, steak, sweet, syrup, vinegar, Whatever Wednesday, white, white wine vinegar, wineComment

Going "Green-Go"

» "Green-go" Steak | Grilled "Green-go" Sauce-Marinated Ribeye Steak, topped with "Green-go" Sauce | "Cowboy" Fries

THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE a JUST PHOTOS post, but how could I in all fairness just post these photos without telling you what "Green-go" sauce is and what exactly is in it.

It started in my head as an idea of a Mexican "sweet and spicy" sauce when I came across some agave nectar in my local supermarket. I immediately thought of jalapeños and agave nectar ad over a few weeks, fully "realized" a sauce of roasted jalapeños and roasted poblano peppers, agave nectar, fresh cilantro, fresh garlic, lime juice, olive oil, white wine vinegar, salt and pepper.

The day after I was planning on making this (for Whatever Wednesdays)—when I finally found some agave nectar, I put all of those ingredients into a blender, then used some of it as a marinade for a bone-in ribeye steak.

"Green-go" Sauce

After marinating for two hours, the ribeye was grilled in a very hot cast iron skillet with just a little bit of oil, three minutes on each side for a moist, beautiful, delicious medium rare steak, with smoky, crispy, spicy, charred caramelized edges. An additional drizzle of the fresh "Green-go" sauce returned some of the herbaceousness of the peppers and cilantro and the sweetness of the agave, lime, and garlic. Idaho potatoes were previously sectioned skin-on, tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper, onion powder, and paprika, then baked in the over for 10 minutes before being tossed in a deep fryer of hot oil as the steak rested.

Sliced into strips of the bone made it easy to get a bite of ribeye with lean rare meat, a little bit of warm and grizzled fat, and a powerfully tasty and kicky charred exterior in every bite, and the "Cowboy fries" were like, airy, aromatic, with a nice crispy skin as well. The whole dish was as outdoorsy and homey, and my ideation of how Mexican cuisine can ingratiate itself to more northern American palates.

Or maybe that was what all that tequila was for....