Tried & Tested: Steak Night with Janasse Côtes du Rhône

Last Friday I invited my carnivorous twitter-loving friend @baconchop around for dinner. His steak eating prowess is legendary, beating fellow tweeter and award winning food blogger @hollowlegs in a steak eating contest a few years ago. The contest, Man vs Legs, contributed to him doubling both his twitter followers overnight and his weight. Now leaner and meaner, Mr Chop was ready for the challenge: 3 different steaks, a bottle of Côtes du Rhône and some bone marrow for kicks. Read on...

The menu:

Rib eye, Sirloin and Onglet served with bone marrow and a pepper sauce.

We sourced the steaks from a brilliant butcher, Ginger Pig, in Borough Market;  none of that supermarket, pre-packaged stuff for us! Please use your local butcher - you'll see the difference.

The idea for the pepper sauce came from an email sent by Bluebird restaurant’s PR people which included a Cheat’s Pepper Sauce video. It takes 2 minutes so can be done while you are resting your steaks – a good way of de-glazing the pan too.

The bone marrow recipe is borrowed from St John’s restaurant in Farringdon, London, via food critic Matthew Fort. This is a classic dish – just right for our meaty challenge.

For a little respite from the carnivorous delights we prepared a green salad with our mate Vincent’s famous French dressing.

The result:

Meat-fest! We decided to leave out the chips (controversial) due to large amount of meat products available and the toasted bread mopping up the bone marrow. The rare-to-medium rare steaks were excellent:  we voted the rib eye and onglet as top choices – the onglet slightly pipping the rib eye to the post in terms of sheer beefy flavour.

The Janasse Côtes du Rhône was peppery and smooth with some refreshing redcurrant acidity cutting through all that meaty richness – particularly useful with the bone marrow. We also tried the steaks with a pricier, rich, hearty, oaky Spanish red – and this also worked a treat with the robust flavours of the meat. Red wine, red meat – you can’t go too far wrong!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prep:

Get healthy first. Adam (Mr Chop) has been seeing a personal trainer and is in tip top condition. I have been ‘walking around a bit’ which constitutes ‘match-fit’ as far as I can tell.

Put the oven on and heat to 190°C. While you’re waiting for the oven to warm up you can prep your salad.

Salad with Vincent's French Dressing

Take two little gems, wash and drain then dress just before serving with Vincent’s French dressing. Take the Dijon mustard, olive oil and water, whisking to emulsify, then add a spike of white wine vinegar. Voila! Add the dressing at the table just before serving.

St John’s Roasted Bone Marrow on Toast with Parsley Salad

Combine the parsley, shallots and capers in a small bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the lemon juice and olive oil to make a dressing. Add the dressing to the other ingredients and season.

This can be spread on to the bone marrow once it has cooked for 20 mins in the oven – the marrow should be loose and giving, but not melting away.

Once cooked, season the marrow with some sea salt and spread onto toast with the parsley salad.

Cooking the steaks:

While the bone marrow is cooking, get your frying pans on – you want them nice and hot to seal the meat and cook rapidly.

Baconchop acted as consultant and wingman, manning the stop watch while I flipped the steaks. He came up with an ingenious plan of cooking the three different steaks in 3-2-1 formation. The thicker, more marbled rib eye was to be cooked for 3 minutes each side while the slightly thinner, leaner sirloin would be cooked for 2 minutes per side. Lastly the Onglet would be cooked for just 1 minute per side as it was very lean and thin.

Each steak was then rested on a warmed plate for around 5 mins before serving.

Cheat’s Pepper Sauce

While we waited for the steaks to rest, we made a Cheat’s Pepper Sauce:

Take 100ml of Worcestershire sauce and reduce by ¾ in the frying pan. Pour 200ml of single cream into the pan and bring the sauce to a boil for 30 seconds. When the steaks have rested for five minutes you can whisk the juices into to the sauce.

By Chris Penwarden