Blue cheese and steak panini

Makes 4
Preparation 10 minutes
Cooking time 20 minutes

This blue cheese sauce doubles as a salad dressing and it also goes well with braaied chicken. It will last in the fridge for up to a week.

You need:

• 2 deboned rib-eye steaks
• (300 g in total)
• 2 red peppers
• olive oil
• 4 panini
• butter or mayonnaise
• gherkins (optional)
• lettuce (optional)
• 1 onion, sliced thinly (optional)

For the sauce

• 125 g blue cheese (or to taste)
• 1 cup parsley
• 2 spring onions
• 1 clove of garlic
• 4 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
• 125 g cream cheese
• 1/3 cup olive oil

Here’s how

1. Baste the steaks and red peppers with olive oil. Sear the peppers over the coals until the flesh is tender. Peel them and cut into slices.
2. Prepare the sauce by blitzing half of the blue cheese with the rest of the sauce ingredients. If you don’t have a blender, chop the parsley, spring onions and garlic finely, and mix them with the rest of the ingredients. Add more blue cheese to taste – crumble the cheese to add texture.
3. Braai the steaks for about 4 minutes a side then set them aside for 5 minutes to rest. Slice thinly.
4. Cut open the panini and spread with butter or mayonnaise. Put a few slices of red pepper on each panini, followed by a few pieces of steak and a spoonful of blue-cheese sauce. Garnish with gherkins, lettuce and onion.

VARIATION: Substitute the blue cheese with 1 – 2 anchovy fillets and add a small chopped chilli. The cream cheese can also be left out, but then add more olive oil to the sauce.

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