Leftover rice from daal chawal inspired this dish with the help of pinterest. Since I did not feel like Indian again, I thought Mexican would be a nice change. I searched for “mexican bowls” on Pinterest and this is what I found: Steak Fajita Bowls.

Truth be told, I don’t really like to follow a recipe. I’m more of a “what do I have in my fridge that I can chuck into this” kinda gal. I bought a red pepper, corn and the steak but figured I could use what I already had for the rest. This is the sort of recipe but more of an assembly job kinda supper that I like to make.

Ingredients:

• 2 pieces of tenderised steak (150g-200g each).
• Marinade for steak: Squeeze of Worcestershire sauce on each steak, ready-made green chilli, ginger & garlic paste (2tsp) or some of each, salt.
• 1/2 cup brown rice (I ended up cooking more since you-know-who ate the leftovers)
• 1 tin Corn kernals, washed and drained or fresh corn on the cob, if you’ve got time for that.
• 1 tin red kidney beans or baked beans (I used leftovers)
• 1/2 red, green or yellow pepper, julienne (red and yellow have a sweeter flavour)
• 1/4 red or white onion (salsa)
• 1 index finger sized piece of cucumber (salsa)
• 1 small tomato (salsa)
• chopped coriander for the rice and salsa
• fresh lemon or lime
• Spring onion, chopped
• Fresh Avo or ready-made Guac from Woolies (They have buy 2 for R30 special at the moment, which is cheaper than Avo’s since they are not in season.)

Method:

1. Marinade the steak in Worcestershire sauce, green chilli, ginger, garlic and leave in the fridge while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.
2. Cook the rice. Leave to cool, then add lemon or lime juice, chopped coriander and a generous sprinkling of sriracha seasoning from Woolies.
3. Drain the corn kernels, heat 1TB of oil in a very hot pan. Get the pan hot first, then add the oil, then add the corn. Fry until slightly caramelized.
4. In the same pan, after I removed the corn, I sauted the red pepper.
5. For the salsa, I cut the cucumber, tomato and onion into blocks, added some of the chopped coriander and some freshly squeezed lemon juice.
6. To cook the steak, heat the same pan you used earlier until smoking, add 1TB of oil then add the steaks. Turn the steaks once after about 3 minutes on each side. After 6 minutes, take the pan off the heat and let the steak rest for 5 minutes. Cut into strips.
7. To assemble your bowl, take some rice, add as much of the corn, pepper, salsa, guac/avo, beans and strips of steak as you want and garnish with some spring onion.

Tips:

I bought about 600g of steak, used half and kept the rest for later. It cost +/- R80 from Woolies, I’m getting two different meals out of it and husbo is getting the leftovers for lunch.

If you don’t have Worcestershire sauce, don’t stress use Soya Sauce.

If you don’t have Soya Sauce….wait you don’t have Soya Sauce? We can’t be friends.

You can find nice ready made chilli, garlic and ginger pastes in indian grocers or butcher shops. They are time savers and make cooking super easy since the holy grail of indian cooking are these three ingredients. I have tried a few brands (HQ Foods, Pick ‘n Pay but Amina’s Wonderspice Green Chilli Paste is the nicest I have used so far).