For the reward given – cooking steak is probably one of the best things you can do to entertain guests. It’s so easy and there’s really no better accompaniment for steak than red wine.
I like to buy a whole Angus fillet and cook it first before cutting it into fillet steaks, this way you can keep the juices and really preserve a lot of the flavour. It also presents a perfect opportunity to do what any male wine millennial, or any male for that matter – likes most… marinade. Like making hot-sauce, there is perhaps no time more satisfying to a man than when given the chances to marinade something. There’s a certain feeling of alchemy in preparing the meat that really doesn’t come with other pre-preparation chores like peeling potatoes or rolling pastry flat.
The ingredients for getting a steak ready are quite simple: rock salt, English mustard, lemons, pepper, red wine, olive oil, chopped garlic and mixed spices. Adding lemon juice helps seal the steak and within minutes the pinkish colour will disappear and the fillet will start to gain a more cooked sort of colour. At this point I roll the fillet in a bed of rock-salt before smothering it in a healthy dose of English mustard mixed with spice and crushed garlic. Once done, leave it to soak in a pool of red wine on top of a bed of diced onions allowing the blood and fermented juice to comingle.
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After a lengthy evening of sipping (and sometimes chugging) champagne, and fun filled conversation, it is now officially 2008. Someone pointed out last night that it will be extremely easy to turn the accidental 2007 into a 2008, which further brightened my excitement for the coming year and a common problem of mine.
Someone else also pointed out the chip dip was AMAZING. I took some photos during the easy 5 step process of making it to share with you, as we did a little tweaking to the recipe.
Step 1 – Get it together
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When buying a bottle of Champagne, if the label says from “Champagne, France“,“methode traditionelleâ€, or “Méthode Champenoiseâ€, the wine is in fact truly a “Champagne“. All other wines are “Sparkling Wine”. While this does sound somewhat snobbish and aristocratic, it does serve a good purpose in protecting the brand of the area. Another example of this type of “rule” that you may be more familiar with is the Vidalia Onion, which you can easily cook with champagne, or sparkling wine, to create some great hors d’oeuvres for this New Year.
You have to check out these Champagne Onion recipes we found over at The Gilded Fork. I’m going to make them tomorrow, and have a good idea at the different flavors I can create by using different combinations of sparkling wine and onions. Read the rest of this entry »
