Crazy Beef!

oooh check out that marbling!

Many years ago I had the pleasure of making many various trips to Paris for business. My main contact in Paris (a rather irascible Corsican!) dubbed me ‘Crazy Beef’ his version of Mad Cow – he never really explained why! However, this Crazy Beef label leapt to my mind after a rather extravagant purchase from the fresh meat counter at Harvey Nix. I was tempted by the new line of Kobe beef and after a bizarre conversation with the butcher who when I challenged the air miles involved getting the meat from the US or New Zealand he thought I was referring to length of time in the air that may stress the meat not the fact that I didn’t feel it was very green. I thought that it was possible to get Kobe beef from Wales – well the meat I bought from Harrods was certainly from Wales, but he disputed that! Anyway, despite the provenance of the aforementioned Kobe, I felt that it was worth a flutter. I purchased a stunning looking rump steak and handed over a small king’s ransom. I struggled with how to accompany such a fine piece of rump as I didn’t want to distract from all that delectable meatiness and eventually plumped for mâche (or lamb’s lettuce) from Source.
I unwrapped my precious cargo and after it posed for photos I cooked it a little - it being sacrilege to cook it too much.
The mâche just had an anointment of balsamic to mingle with the meat juices on the plate. It was indeed a very fine piece of meat, über fine if you will! The word that springs to mind is 'meaty'. It is really difficult to describe exactly the taste as it tastes like no other piece of beef ever - crazy beef indeed!