This recipe is my East Meets West take on steak and risotto. I wanted to make a risotto with steak and kale, which is something we might eat for dinner for a special occasion, but using some Japanese ingredients to give it a new identity and keep things new and different. So with the steak, risotto, and kale, I wanted to add something to each of those components. With the steak, I marinated the sirloins in koji(a Japanese bacteria that is usually used to ferment things, but adds umami to everything it is added to), cooking sake, and red miso, just to give them a stronger flavor and a more tender texture. With the risotto, one of my favorite rice dishes is grilled miso rice balls. So why not try making a risotto version of that miso rice? And just to add some color there, I added edamame in the miso risotto as a nod to edamame, being soy beans, being the basis for miso paste. That and it is a play on peas sometimes being added to risotto. What’s also funny about using miso in this recipe is that it also ties in with the usage of koji in the marinade – koji and soy beans are mixed together to form miso paste! The kale, I roasted it with furikake, which is a mixture of dried seaweed and sesame, to give it pops of texture and salt; I am obsessed with furikake kale, and it just made sense as another component to compliment the richness of the steak!

Makes 4 servings:
For the koji-marinated sirloin steaks:
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tbsp red miso paste
2 tbsp cooking sake
2 tbsp shio koji
a pinch of salt
4 6oz sirloin steaks
canola oil
4 tbsp unsalted butter

In a bowl, marinate the steaks in the garlic, soy sauce, koji, and salt for at least 1 hour. Prior to cooking the steak, be sure to rinse off the marinade and pat the steaks dry. This will keep the exterior of the steaks from burning when you attempt to sear them.

Line a cast iron pan with canola oil and bring up to medium-high heat. Sear the steaks in the oil on each side for 3 minutes. Then add in the butter, and begin to baste each side 50 times. Place the steaks onto a roasting rack and finish baking in the oven at 375 degrees F for 10 minutes. The internal temperature of the steak should be at around 125-130 degrees F.

Allow the steaks to rest for at least 10 minutes before slicing.

For the miso risotto:
1 shallot, peeled and diced
10g lap cheong sausage, diced
1 tsp canola oil
5g dried kombu
1 cup short grain rice
2 tbsp cooking sake
2 cups beef stock
2 tbsp red miso paste
1/4 cup soy bean milk
1/4 cup blanched and shocked edamame

In a large pan, start by sweating out the shallot, lap cheong, and kombu in the canola oil on medium-low heat until the shallot is translucent. Then remove the shallot, lap cheong, and kombu, then add into the pan the rice, toasting that in the pan on medium heat until the rice smells nutty. Deglaze the pan with the cooking stake. In another pot, heat up the beef stock and miso paste. Add 1/4 of that liquid to the pan with the rice, while stirring the rice on medium heat until the rice thickens around the liquid. Repeat this step 3 more times, using up all of the stock. Then add in the soy bean milk, stirring the rice again once last time until completed – you want the rice grains to have absorbed the liquid. Add in the edamame to finish.

For the furikake-garlic kale:
8 leaves of kale, chopped
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp canola oil
1 clove garlic, peeled and sliced thinly
a pinch of salt
1 tsp cooking sake
2 tbsp furikake

In a pan, sweat out the kale in sesame oil, canola oil, and garlic, then add in the salt. Deglaze the pan first with the cooking sake, allowing that to wilt down the kale further, before adding in the furikake to finish.