Sunday, January 14, 2007

I did it my way!

I re-watched Heston Blumenthal create his perfect steak and salad last week with the insanely catchy theme tune that peppers his show - digger, digger, ding, ding, ding, ding - and fancying a bit of steak today but I considered the wisdom of this method. It seemed to take him 24 hours to slow cook his rib of beef before finally cutting it down into manageable steaks. And Heston of course says it’s the perfect steak.

But the key thing is that I wanted a steak today, and I didn’t know yesterday that I wanted a steak today. I’m all for getting the meat out of the fridge for an hour before cooking but starting the day before? I’m not so sure about that.

Raymond le Blanc was on Saturday Kitchen yesterday and was waxing lyrical about the importance of cooking your steak in a nice bit of foaming butter and made a little jus by deglazing the tasty pan juices with nothing more than water! One of my favourites, Mark Sargeant was also on with Raymond and conjured up a verdant green broccoli puree with a poached duck egg and goats’ cheese cream. Shame about the goats’ cheese but maybe it can be reinterpreted! I know Raymond is a keen advocate of slow food, I wonder what he’d think about Heston’s day long steak cooking?

I cooked my steak rare and amply peppered in my lovely SKK pan alongside some chunks of field mushrooms and served, naturally, with some fabulous creamy, buttery mash potatoes. I didn't do Raymond's trick with the jus this time as I didn't want it to mingle with the mash but it was still very fine.
Hmmm perfection indeed!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Heston Blumenthal seems to invoke a depth of feeling in me which is very unusual, sheer RAGE!! Like Gary Rhodes I think he puts sooo many people off learning to cook or trying to cook for themselves as everything is so fussy and overly complicated.

Sorry for ranting but I find even the mention of his name sets me off on one.
:)

Your steak looks absolutely delicious and I fully agree with you, Raymond Blanc and Mark Sargeant about the best way to cook a steak. Fast, rare and juicy.

J said...

Fair point, watching Heston cooking is stressful, it's extreme cooking and every time he mentions recreating something in your kitchen I shudder to think of me clad in full length gauntlets, protective goggles and trying to wrestle a giant industrial blowtorch in my tiny non-flameproof kitchen. Ugggh! Though saying that, I am still very interested to try the completed food, I just don't need the daylight shone upon the mystery.
And Gary? Well I thought his last book 'Keeping It Simple' was considerably more accessable than his older work and I have used it for inspiration on several occasions. He's calmed down the number of little extras each dish should have!

Pamela said...

Hahaha yeah Gary and his optional extras, LOL!

:)