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I typically go for light breakfasts, anything from a veggie skillet to a croissant egg sandwich. But after an active weekend in the mountains, I turned to the Steak & Egg on Linger’s brunch menu. As with many of the restaurant’s offerings, the dish is a riff on a traditional combination: Tender beef and plantain mashed potatoes are juxtaposed with fried Brussels sprouts leaves, crunchy pickled red onions, and a delicate poached egg. I was in love. Here, executive chef Marty Steinke explains how the surprisingly complex plate comes together.
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1 Grilled Never Ever Beef Tender
“We use all Colorado beef from Aspen Ridge. This is a teres major cut from the shoulder. It’s a muscle that not everyone knows about; it usually gets thrown into a grinder. The texture of it is just like beef tenderloin, but it has a bit more fat content and flavor.”
2 Chimichurri
“It’s a traditional chimichurri in the sense that it has the same ingredients (raw garlic, cooked garlic, parsley, vinegar, and olive oil and chile flakes), but I take it a step further to make it more appealing on the plate and give it a better mouthfeel. We draw [the ingredients] in the blender with a couple of soft-boiled eggs to emulsify it all together and give it a thick, creamy consistency.”
3 Plantain Mashed Potatoes
“The idea probably came from Puerto Rican tostones (fried plantains) on the street. We morphed that into plantain mashed potatoes: half mashed potatoes, half plantains. You get a nice fruitiness. I still fry the plantains so you get that caramelized flavor; then we mash them into a purée and mix it with potatoes.”
4 Crispy Brussels Sprouts
“Fried Brussels sprouts is just a side that I’ve always loved. I thought it would go well with the egg yolk and the acid from the chimichurri. We take all the leaves apart and clean them all the way down to the heart. Then we fry them pretty hot, really quick, and let the oil drain off so they’re not greasy. We season them with a mixture of vinegar powder, salt, sugar, and chile flakes so you have sweet, salty, and spicy.”
5 Pickled Red Onions
“We do a cold pickle, so they have a bit of crunch to them. I’ll have a couple of days on them so they really marinate.”
6 Poached Egg
“We’re using these great large brown chicken eggs from Cottonwood Creek Farms. We sous vide the egg first, nice and slow, and then pick it up in boiling water a couple of seconds before we plate the dish.”
