Carpetbag steak or carpetbagger steak is a traditional working class dish from

Mumbles Mumbles ( cy, Mwmbwls) is a headland sited on the western edge of Swansea Bay on the southern coast of Wales. Toponym Mumbles has been noted for its unusual place name. The headland is thought by some to have been named by French sailors, ...

, a historic oyster fishing village in Swansea, South Wales, UK. Over the years it has become a luxury dish, popular in the 1950s and 1960s in Australia and

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. It consists of an end cut of

steak A steak is a thick cut of meat generally sliced across the muscle fibers, sometimes including a bone. It is normally grilled or fried. Steak can be diced, cooked in sauce, such as in steak and kidney pie, or minced and formed into patti ...

, such as scotch fillet or eye fillet. A pocket is cut in the meat via a small entry cut and then expanded internally, into which oysters are stuffed and the opening closed with toothpicks or thread. As the dish is grilled, the flavour of the fresh oysters permeates the steak and blends with the juice of the tender meat. The combination of beef and oysters is traditional and formed part of the everyday diet of oyster fisherman in Swansea in the mid 1800s. The earliest specific reference in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

was a newspaper in 1891, which may indicate a connection with

carpetbaggers In the history of the United States, carpetbagger is a largely historical term used by Southerners to describe opportunistic Northerners who came to the Southern states after the American Civil War, who were perceived to be exploiting the l ...

or to gluttony. The earliest specific Australian reference is a printed recipe from between 1899 and 1907. Another recipe from 1909 includes cayenne pepper as an ingredient, which may indicate an American origin.The Truth about Carpetbag Stea
The Old Foodie
/ref> The more recent Australian versions typically use Worcestershire sauce, as does the local version of Oysters Kilpatrick. It is sometimes served standing up like a miniature mountain. A strip of bacon may be wrapped around the serving and surrounded by peeled and browned baby

potato The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unit ...

halves. In one style, the steak is marinated in a sauce of thyme, pepper, tarragon, lemon, sugar and tamarind and served with a glass of dessert wine.

References

Beef dishes Australian cuisine Oyster dishes {{meat-stub

See also

References