Recipe: Adam Liaw’s 40-Minute Scotch Fillet Tacos

Photo: Courtesy of Hardie Grant / Steve Brown

A little steak goes a long way in this cracking recipe from author, presenter and cook Adam Liaw’s new book 7 Days of Dinner. It’s just one of 80 recipes helping solve the eternal dilemma of what to eat for dinner tonight, via themed (and enticingly alliterative) chapters for every night of the week, including taco Tuesday, fish Friday and meat-free Monday.

A good steak also makes a great taco. Just a slice or two of meat goes a long way when paired with a fresh pico de gallo and a bit of guacamole, so you only need one good steak to share.

I think guacamole is best when it’s just avocado, salt and lime. You can of course add coriander, onion or other things, but I prefer to leave those for the pico de gallo or other simple salsas rather than doubling up.

Scotch-fillet tacos
Serves 4
Prep time: 20 minutes, plus 10 minutes resting
Cooking time: 10 minutes

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Ingredients:
1 thick Scotch fillet steak, about 400g (you can use flank, sirloin or any other cut you like)
Salt and black pepper, to season
2 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, bruised
½ tsp smoked paprika
½ tsp ground cumin
8 small corn or flour tortillas

Guacamole
2 avocados
Juice of 2 limes
Salt, to season

Jalapeno pico de gallo
2 tomatoes, finely diced
½ cup finely shredded coriander
1 small red onion, very finely diced
60g (¼ cup) pickled jalapenos, finely diced
Juice of 2 limes
Salt, to season

Method:
To make the guacamole, mash the avocados with the lime juice and salt and set aside.

To make the jalapeno pico de gallo, combine all the ingredients and mix well.

Heat a frying pan over a medium-high heat. Season the steak well with salt and pepper, add a little oil to the pan and fry the steak until well browned on one side. Flip the steak and add the remaining oil to the pan. Add the garlic to the pan and use a spoon to start to baste the steak with the oil. When the steak is nearly cooked to medium-rare, or your desired doneness (to be precise it’s best to use a cooking thermometer as steaks vary in size), add the paprika and cumin, continuing to baste the steak. Once cooked to your liking, remove the steak from the pan, pour over the oil from the pan and rest for 5-10 minutes.

Warm tortillas (either by wrapping in foil and heating in the oven, or quickly grilling on a grill pan) and top each with a big dollop of the guacamole. Slice the steak and divide between the tortillas, then spoon over the pico de gallo.

This is an edited extract from 7 Days of Dinner by Adam Liaw (Hardie Grant Books, which is available in stores nationally.

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