Steak Fiorientina with Sauteed Spinach

This week my local grocery store was running a special on Ribeye Steaks. Usually I would marinate the steaks in soy sauce and coat them with Montreal Steak Seasoning - but 1. I was out of seasoning and 2. We ALWAYS do that, and Nick and I wanted to try something new. Enter our new Mario Batali cookbook - thanks Mom!

I have adapted this recipe in several ways because it calls for 3" T-Bone steaks and fresh herbs. My steaks were barely 1" by comparison, and I only had dried herbs. But you know what, this recipe was very, very good with a much subtler flavor than our usual marinade. I highly recommend this as an alternate to your everyday marinade.

Steak Fiorientina with Sauteed Spinach

Here's what I used:

2 1" thick Ribeye Steaks
3-4 tbsp olive oil, in small bowl

1 tbsp dried sage
1 tbsp dried rosemary
1 tbsp dried thyme
2 tbsp kosher salt
2 tbsp ground black pepper

1 large bag baby spinach
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3-4 cloves garlic. chopped
3 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
S&P to taste

Here's what I did:

Allow steak to sit at room temperature while preparing the rub. Combine rosemary, thyme, sage, salt and pepper in a bowl. Coat steaks evenly with seasoning rub (I did not use all seasoning, had about 1 tbsp remaining, which I saved). Drizzle with olive oil, and use a cooking brush or the back of a spoon to evenly distribute olive oil over meat.

Meanwhile, I set my ridged cast iron pot to med-high and drizzled surface with olive oil. Once this was hot, about 4-5 minutes later, I added my steaks and cooked for 4 minutes per side.

While the steaks were cooking, I started my spinach. In a high-sided skillet I added my olive oil and garlic. Cook the garlic about 30 seconds before adding spinach. Allow spinach to wilt, stirring occasionally. Season with salt and pepper to taste and drizzle in lemon juice. Cover and set aside while finishing steaks.

Once steak is finished, allow to rest about 5 minutes. This will seal in the juices. Plate steak with spinach. I also had some long grain basmati rice at hand from another dish. I plated the rice and spinach, with the steaks on top. The juice from the steak and spinach was plenty to add character to the rice.

I will definitely be using this recipe/rub again in the future. Go Mario!