A Better Summer Sheet-Pan Dinner: Asparagus and Steak

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A Better Summer Sheet-Pan Dinner: Asparagus and Steak

May 1 2019

A Better Summer Sheet-Pan Dinner: Asparagus and Steak

Words Heather Ramsdell
Meet our new Asparagus Peeler.

As the weather starts to warm up, we can’t get enough asparagus. But usually a good chunk goes to waste — most people are taught to break the stalk towards the bottom to remove the woody part or slice all of the stalks evenly. So, we decided to find a better way. Meet our new Asparagus Peeler. The peeler’s blade is carefully designed to remove the woody peel from stalks for more asparagus with less waste. You probably don’t need a reason to eat more asparagus but this tool makes it easier.

As an added bonus, we like to use this peeler on two other vegetables:

Broccoli Stems

Broccoli stems taste wonderful, sweet and mild, but their thick slippery skin is a pain to peel. The fine serrated edge on this peeler bites into that tough skin and makes it easy to get to the crunchy inside. Slice and roast, cube and sautée, or shred the stems in coleslaw, but definitely do not throw these delicious stems out!

Celery Strings

You can eat the whole celery stalk if you want, but when you remove the chewy outer strings it makes ants on a log more special and removes every remaining barrier to pure Bloody Mary enjoyment.

Asparagus, T-Bone Steak Sheet-Pan Dinner

Make a steak dinner in about 15 minutes with very few dishes to clean up later. A hot broiler sears an inch thick steak in about 8 minutes, and while it rests, the veggies cook the rest of the way. Serve this meal with steamed rice or bread to feed 4. This makes a celebration out of an ordinary weeknight, even though asparagus seems like it might be a special occasion food, the peeler makes short work of prepping. It’s curved, so it follows the slender stalks, and it’s serrated and swiftly handles the thin slippery peels, without removing too much. The peeled stems are nicer to eat.

Asparagus, T-Bone Steak Sheet-Pan Dinner

Recipe courtesy Heather Ramsdell: Serves 2 to 4

Ingredients

One 1-pound bunch asparagus

Kosher salt and black pepper

1 lemon

Extra virgin olive oil

1 pound T-bone steak about 1 ¼ inches thick

1 small clove garlic

2 scallions, white parts minced, green parts thinly sliced

10 ounces cremini and/or shiitake mushrooms with their stems removed

Crusty bread or steamed rice for serving

Instructions

Preheat broiler with a rack 6 inches from the heating element and another rack in the middle of the oven.
Peel the bottom 2 inches of asparagus stalks. Cut or snap about ½ inch off the woody ends. Put the asparagus in a single layer on the right half of the sheet pan. Sprinkle with salt, drizzle with oil and turn with tongs to coat with oil.
Shave 6 paper-thin slices of lemon. Quarter the slices and scatter them on the asparagus.
Season the steak liberally on the top, bottom and sides with big pinches of salt, grindings of black pepper, and enough olive oil to coat. Put the steak on the pan.
Grate a clove of garlic into a small bowl. Stir in 1/4 cup of the olive oil, the scallion white and the juice from the remaining half lemon. Spoon most of the garlic and some of the oil and lemon juice over the mushrooms to coat them. Save the rest of the lemon oil for serving. Season the mushrooms with salt. Put them on the pan in a single layer.
Slide the pan under the broiler with the steak centered under the heating element.
Broil until the top of the steak is brown and crusty and the temperature in the center of the steak reads 115 degrees for medium rare, 7 to 8 minutes. Do not flip the steak. Take the pan from the oven and transfer the steak to a cutting board, letting it rest while the other vegetables finish cooking. Turn the asparagus and stir the mushrooms with tongs. Return the pan to lower rack in the oven. Continue to cook until the asparagus is tender and browned in spots and the mushrooms are fragrant and juicy, about 5 more minutes.
Slice the steak. Sprinkle the mushrooms with the scallion greens and serve with asparagus, bread or rice, and the remaining lemony oil on the side.
Note: If your broiler is separate from your oven, preheat oven to 400 when you heat the broiler, and cook the asparagus and mushroom in there when you are done cooking the steak.