When everything You ever believed... was WRONG!

Beef... more appropriately Steak, has long been one of my favourite foods. It would definately be my last meal (if it was positively guarenteed to be cooked to a perfect rare). I remember before I was a big steak fan, I would go to steak houses with family and friends, and nibble on a dry chicken breast or iceberg-y salad wondering what all the fuss was about.

I can't remember which particular steak brought me back to being a lover of the cow, but I DO remember not too long after, I decided I was going to learn how to cook the perfect steak, and bought a 6 burner gas barbeque to assist the learning process.

I can proudly, and boldly, say that I can cook steaks *he hem* PERFECTLY... to the point where I am so critical of restaurant steaks, that I would say that in 3 out of 4 cases, I am disappointed.

But... all of that self-praise aside, I return to the point that I am here to make. Being proved wrong... and by a hero at that. Tonight, after napping on the couch through the evening, I woke just after midnight and realised I'm probably not going back to sleep for a while, so I jumped on 4OD (TV on demand) and had a peruse. Mr Heston Blumenthal has a new series that I thought I'd catch up on. How To Cook Like Heston is Heston teaching us, the viwers, how to cook: no fancy schmancy science-type theatrical food, but basics, that we all-too-often get wrong. Tonight's episode was Beef HUZZAH!

I will let you catch up on the whole episode at your leisure. Worryingly Lord Blumenthal tonight told me that I was wrong. That my tried and true searingly hot pan, 2-3 mins one side, 1-2 the second, was WRONG! I am yet to try his method of continually flipping every 15 seconds, but I shall... and will report back.

This has got me thinking though. If I cook perfect (and i mean perfect in the true sense of the word, ie: as good as it can possibly be) steak is there any point in me changing? Or... if my steaks are actually less-perfect than they can actually be, how much more dining disappointment is there for me in the future?

An experiment is at hand. The outcome, I don't know. But if nothing else, Heston has shown me how to make a great burger patty.

I am about to watch the next episode: Eggs. I'm fairly sure my fried egg is second-to-none, but we'll see what H.B. has to say about that. (In a worst case scenario, I might finally learn how to poach)

Watch How To Cook Like Heston Here

See my steak here

Surf and Turf

 My body had been craving Salad. Salad, red meat... nutrients. Which it generally does after a big dose of partying. So I called my housemate, let him know I was cooking, and headed to the shops.

I picked up some rump, prawns and salad items, gathered up my housemate and his brother from work, and headed home to prepare the feast.

The salad was a pre-bagged salad of leaves, to which I added celery, cucumber, sun blushed tomatos, pine nuts and a Jamie Oliver-inspired sauteed nectarine in olive oil and black pepper. The dressing came with the leaves and had an asian tang of chili and ginger.

The baby potatoes were boiled in in their skins in heavily salted water to which I added chili flakes. After boiling, I drained then returned to the hot pan and placed back in the heat for around 30 seconds to dry them out and added more coursely ground sea salt, and served with a knob of butter.

The prawns, (which were a product of Thailand- which I usually stay away from, but strangely fresh Mooloolaba prawns aren't so easy to get a hold of here in Scotland) I marinated in three cloves of finely chopped garlic, a fair amount- maybe a tsp of dried chili flakes and olive oil whilst I was preparing the salad and potatoes, then pan fried for no longer than a minute, transferred to a bowl, and kept warm in the oven.

The rump was one of the cheapest steaks available at the store, but I will always adore the full-flavour of rump, and since I've been over here, I can't help but notice how beautiful the meat is. The flavours are more delicate but more defines, and the texture seems much finer than that of Australian beef. I can't be sure, but that's my opinion. To cook, (rare for me, blue for my housemate- my first attempt at a blue steak) I covered both steaks in freshly ground pepper, and got the pan smoking hot. I friend mine first. Maybe 2 minutes on one side, and between 30 secs and a minute on the second side, then transferred it to the pre warmed oven. The housemates, was no more than a minute on each side. They rested in the cool (70deg) oven. Then I plated everything together.

I served with a Rosemount Semillon Verdelho.

It was a really lovely meal, and reminded me how much I miss Australian-type cooking. Salads are a rarity with meals here, and often fresh fruit and veg are entirely omitted. This meal has totally inspired me to get cooking again.