It has been some time since I last posted a recipe, but this one could not remain hidden from view! I have a bit to say, so if you’re not interested in the words, the recipe is here, ready for your undertaking. But please read on…
Ingredients
Steak (any variety) but scotch fillet is a good choice
1 x tblspn olive oil
80gm butter
4-5 large garlic cloves, finely chopped or diced
200gm (whole punnet) sliced button mushrooms
4-5 Swiss Brown mushrooms, semi chopped
A large hand full of chopped Continental parsley
100ml thickened cream
Coarse ground black pepper
Massel chicken stock powder
A pinch of Sea Salt (or any other salt you have)
Method
If properly prepared, the steak and the sauce can be created concurrently so the entire cooking process should be complete in 4-5 minutes, which is a remarkable time for such an excellent meal.
Ensure the meat is at room temperature. Lightly cover it with olive oil, salt and pepper and let it rest and reach room temperature. Heat your frypan until it is hot and make sure it remains hot. Put a little olive oil on the pan and place the room temp. meat in the pan. Pan cooking meat to medium rare is a four-minute process. After one minute turn the steak over, again at the two-minute mark and finally one more turn at the three-minute mark and at the four-minute mark remove the steak from the pan and allow it to rest for a few minutes (not in the pan).
Whilst this quick meat cooking process is taking place, the sauce can be created. Over medium heat, in a smallish saucepan, melt the butter. When molten, place your garlic into the butter and let it start to cook. Butter and garlic are a match made in heaven! After a minute, toss in all the sliced button and Swiss mushrooms. Add a splash of water and place the lid on so the heat can build. After a minute or so toss in a fair sprinkle coarse black pepper, a tspn of Massel chicken stock powder and a pinch of salt. After another minute add your chopped Continental parsley and pour in the cream. Give it a gentle shake to mix it together and let it continue to enrich for about a minute before removing the heat and allowing it to settle.
Once the meat has rested for a minute or two, pour the sauce over the meat and eat it. It should be very, very good!
Enjoy!
Additional commentary
Steak
The perfect steak is cooked as described above. The resting process assists to develop the pink centre of a medium rare steak. Ten minutes (covered with foil) is meant to be the rest time, but I never usually wait that long. A ribbed pan assists to develop the wonderful presentation rib lines that also add to the flavour of the meat. It took me a little time to grasp the technique to attain the ‘cris cross’ pattern, but practice makes perfect! The fresh sprinkling of salt and pepper during the cooking process assists to develop a winning formula.
The need to cook the meat at room temperature is vital. Meat that retains the refrigerator temperature cannot heat up over the four-minute time allowed for a perfect steak and the meat retains an overly red centre, sometimes a little colder than the outer. Many years ago I thought I had perfected the technique to cook frozen meat on the barbeque, but I have not done that for a decade or two!
Finely chopped garlic
I find that if I crush the whole clove by pressing heavily on the side of the broad knife blade, the clove releases cleanly from the outer skin and the flavour starts to release. It then becomes a simple task to remove the end of the clove and just start chopping. The finer the garlic is sliced, the better.
Cooking the garlic in the butter ensures that once the garlic moves around the sauce, it ports the butter flavour with it. A short one-minute cook time will ensure the garlic does not burn and the butter will also be flavoured with garlic. Each ingredient assists the other.
Continental Parsley
In my kitchen, no meal is complete without Continental parsley. I put it in everything. It always adds flavour, but more importantly it presents beautifully ensuring that you are ‘getting your greens’! This cannot be argued when parsley is around.
Large stalks accompany Continental Parsley. If the parsley stalks transport the nutrients to the leaves, then they must be equally as good as the leaves, so I always very finely chop the stalks so they can be added to the meal. You might say I ‘cube’ the stalks, meaning the width of the stalk slices is equivalent to the thickness of the stalk. Stalks cubed! Developing a rolling knife action is a skill that will never leave. Chopping by banging the blade on the chopping board can’t benefit the knifes sharp edge. My preferred kitchen knives (Furi) have a broad-rounded edge that makes the ‘rolling’ cut a simple task whilst preserving the knife’s sharpness.
Coarse Black Pepper
The quantity of coarse black pepper that I add to my meals has steadily increased over time. Black pepper within a meal is different to black pepper on a meal. The pepper seems to have an internal warming property so that meals infused with black pepper will actually warm you up without tasting ‘peppery’. Pepper placed upon the meal whilst eating has a peppery flavour and may make you sneeze! I doubt you will receive complaints from pepper within a meal as it is not noticed as much as it is when applied later.
Enjoy the experience and cook for your friends. Everyone loves to have a meal prepared for them. The guests can then clean up!