ER MEH GERD.. who’s ready for some Sweet Thai Chili Steak Bowls!?!?! I eat an abundance of chicken so a couple times a month I have a major hankering for red meat. When that craving hits, I’m looking at YOU steak!
What’s that? Are you a chicken lover or vegetarian/vegan? No problem! You can easily swap out the steak for chicken or tofu, problem solved! Yay, Good talk!
Say, do you like my new reddish-purple photography backgrounds? I’m so excited because Kieran and I have purchased, and made, some new food photography backgrounds to shoot on! My goal this year is to experiment more with color and tighten up my food photography skills overall.
I recently got turned onto a website called Half Baked Harvest. Holy shit, if you’re not following that girl’s blog, I encourage you to. That young lady has MAD food photography skills. I’m kinda obsessed with her at the moment. The first time I saw her photography I felt sad. I thought, Holy fuck my food photography is like… neanderthal-ish compared to hers! I’m not worthy!
But now instead of feeling low about it, I’m doing something about it. When I’m taking my pictures, I often glance at her shots as inspiration. No, I’m not trying to copy exactly what she does, I’m honestly trying to figure out my own style! I think being inspired by other people’s work can help you achieve that!
So, in order to keep my food photo creative juices flowing, I recently purchased cute backgrounds from Etsy. I could have used them in the pictures this week, but here’s the kicker.
When I was filling out my shipping address online, Chrome auto-filled the address for me. I failed to notice the shipping address Chrome used was my condo in Chicago. #FML
So, unaware of my mistake, a few days later, I checked the tracking number to see when the package was due to arrive. To my horror, I saw the package was already delivered to Chicago and there was nothing I could about it. Luckily for me, I’m friends with my tenant in Chicago and she confirmed the package arrived safely. My friend is a nurse, so understandably she works incredibly long (not to mention tiring) hours, so a few days later, she was able to ship the package back to me, in Portland, Oregon. I should get them any day now, Yippee!!
I was bummed I couldn’t use my new backdrops from Etsy for this post, so I asked Kieran, Can we purchase some wood and stain from Home Depot, and make some?
Kieran, being the creative man dude he is, jumped at the chance to shop at Home Depot. So we hopped into our car (which we’ve named Dr. Driveous) and took off for the store! A few hours later we returned home with wood, stain, and enthusiasm to make backdrops. A few hours after that, our newly stained backdrops were complete, dry, and so my food photography could commence!
So, what do you think? I’m proud of these latest shots, I think little by little, I’m improving! I’m looking forward to pushing myself even more creatively this year, to improve my posts overall. Fingers crossed I don’t fuck it all up. HA!
OK, enough blabbering on and on about pictures, let’s talk about the food IN the pictures dammit!
Dude, killer recipe this week. I took one bite and thought, Whoa momma, my mouth has arrived in happy flavor town.
The prep work for this dish is a little time consuming, but once you start cooking, the recipe comes together rather quickly.
I’ve made this supper with both chicken and steak and each time it came out delicious. If you cook chicken, you can either cook it in the pan first, like I did with the steak, or you can bake it in the oven, wait for it to cool, shred it, and add the shredded chicken at step 5 of the recipe (see below). Either way tastes great, but I feel baking the chicken in the oven is faster because while the chicken is cooking, you can get the other ingredients prepped.
Again, if you’re vegan or vegetarian I bet tofu would kick ass in this. The Sweet Chili Sauce is vegan so if I were using tofu (which I’ll try the next time) I would get extra firm. Then I would drain the water from the tofu (before preparing it) and crisp it in my pan, like how I prepared the steak.
I decided to use steak for this recipe because I eat so much chicken, I wanted a change. Admittedly, I used a top round steak for my pictures, I thought they may photograph better than skirt steak. The top round was delicious but tough. I first made this recipe with skirt steak and enjoyed that cut of meat best.
Honestly though? If you don’t feel like making the rice, the meat, the vegetables go rouge, fuck it. Make the sauce and sip that shit through a straw. It’s so good.
Hope you try out this recipe and enjoy!!
Thanks for stopping by,
Christina
- 2 8-10 oz skirt steaks
- ¾ cup sweet Thai Chile sauce
- ¼ cup soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon peanut butter (creamy or chunky is fine)
- 2 tablespoons orange juice
- 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
- Juice of 1 lime
- 2 garlic cloves minced.
- 2 teaspoons fresh ginger, grated
- 1 garlic clove, thinly sliced
- 1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
- 1 carrot, thinly sliced
- ½ of yellow onion
- 1 jalapeño
- A handful of Thai basil, torn into pieces
- Fresh cilantro, green onion, toasted sesame seeds, hot sauce, and crushed peanuts are optional for serving
- Cooked Jasmine rice for serving
- Season your skirt steak generously, on both sides, with salt and pepper. Let the steak sit on the counter (away from pets if you have them) while you prep the other ingredients.
- Add all the Sweet Chile Sauce ingredients into a bowl. Whisk. The peanut butter may not incorporate well at this stage, but don't worry, you'll be cooking (which will help melt the peanut butter) later in this recipe.
- Heat a splash of your favorite high smoke point oil (like peanut, corn, or vegetable oil) in a skillet over medium-high heat. Sear both sides of the skirt steak until you reach your favorite doneness. I prefer medium rare, so mine cook a few minutes per side.
- Pull the cooked steak out of the skillet, place it on a plate, cover with tin foil. Turn down the heat in the pan to medium. Add additional oil (if necessary) and your garlic cloves. Your pan will be HOT from cooking the steak, even though you just turned down the heat. The moment you add the garlic, stir it around a couple of times, but then immediately add your onion, carrot, red pepper, and jalapeño. Sweat the vegetables until they soften, approx 5 minutes.
- Pour the Sweet Chili Sauce into the pan with the vegetables and stir until everything is well combined. Bring the sauce to a boil, turn down the heat to low, and simmer for 5- 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Once the sauce is finished simmering, you can eat! Slice up your steak into strips.
- Portion your rice until bowls, top the rice with the sweet chili sauce/vegetable mixture, and top that with sliced steak. Sprinkle with your favorite garnishes and enjoy!
Put 1 cup of uncooked rice into a small pot.
Add 2 cups of water and a big pinch of salt
Turn heat under the pot to high on your stove
Once the water boils, stir the rice, cover, and turn the heat to low
Cook rice, undisturbed, for 20 minutes.
Once your timer goes off, DO NOT LIFT THE LID, LEAVE IT BE
Turn off the heat completely and set your oven timer for 8 minutes
Leave rice alone for the additional 8 minutes
Once the timer goes off after 8 minutes, lift the lid, fluff the rice (gently) with a fork and serve.
Calorie Break Down
2 8-10 oz skirt steaks….1,246 (I looked up 2 10 oz for that number)
3/4 cup sweet Thai Chile sauce…..420
1/4 cup soy sauce…. 34
1 tablespoon peanut butter….. 94
2 tablespoons orange juice… 14
1 tablespoon rice vinegar….. 0
Juice of 1 lime….10
2 garlic cloves….. 9
2 teaspoons fresh ginger
1 garlic clove…..4
1 red bell pepper….31
1 carrot… 30
1/2 of yellow onion…. 34
1 jalapeño… 4
Cooked Jasmine rice for serving… depends on how much rice you consume
Garnishes/toppings…depends on how much and what type of garnish/topping you consume
Total calories….1,848
1/2 serving…..924
1/4 serving…462
*Note, I am not a nutritionist, nor am I pretending to be. I found the calorie counts by reading the nutrition labels on the food I purchased, searching Google, and using my Lose It! app on my phone.
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This recipe and these pictures look amazing, Christina! I started following your blog after you posted it on facebook. You and Kieran seem to be doing amazing things in Portland. So happy for you! Can’t wait to see what you do as you develop your mad food photography skills even more!
Yay!!!! It’s Tisha!!! Hey girl, I hope all is well! Are you still in DC? How are you liking it? I hope you’re kicking ass and taking names 🙂
Thanks for the compliment, it means a lot to me 🙂