12 November 2006

Don't Mess Around


I love playing around with recipes, and that's a fact. Case in point: Beef Stroganoff with coconut cream. It's not uncommon, however. Most budding chefs/serious-foodies-who-venture-into-the-kitchen will often find themselves trying to put a little of who they are (not literally of course) into what they cook for their loved ones.

The feeling of following a recipe to the letter, executing it with utmost precision and achieving no less than perfect results is overwhelmingly satisfying. But adapting a recipe to your own personality and finding that it makes your dish even better is, well...... even better!

But some things are just not meant to be played around with. Like steak. As I looked around in my cupboards and fridge, I saw plenty of opportunities to tweak a basic salt and black pepper seasoning for steak. Plenty of dried herbs were on hand, tabasco sauce, chocolate, plenty of flavoured vinegars and oils, and even coconut cream (again).

But I decided to be conservative this time and merely seasoned my rib-eye steak with pounded mustard seeds, black peppercorns and Maldon sea salt. Though I'm sure steak purists would be screaming at me by now for even adding black peppercorns and mustard. Baked in the oven at 100 degrees celcius for 20 minutes, then seared over high heat for 2 minutes on each side, the steak came out just under well-done. I definitely need an instant-read meat thermometer.

But the rib-eye, being rib-eye, still took well to being well-done as not much jaw work was required. Served with a generous dollop of Dijon mustard, it made for an extremely filling and iron-packed lunch. I'll just have to leave the daily fibre loading to dinner time.


10 comments:

Anonymous said...

For steaks you just have to have the mini grilling thermometers at
http://www.williams-sonoma.com/
:P

Aren't they too cute?

Anonymous said...

Great site and great food! I made something for people who like to eat healthy at www.bitesoftware.com and wonder how it would fit in with your lifestyle? Would you be willing to review it?

Anonymous said...

S> oh my, you're right! They are super cute! very smart too!

D said...

That's the beauty about being King/Queen of the kitchen. You can do whatever! =D

Anonymous said...

INDEED! I just saw your roast pork recipe and I've bookmarked it to try one day =) Look seriously good.

D said...

Ahh good. Some of my family members were abit "concerned" about me divulging a "family recipe" but I don't really care haha. It's heaps easy to do and the best thing is you can eat it fresh! Not after it's hung up for like half a day till it's all cold and dry.

Anonymous said...

I fully agree! :)

Anonymous said...

wow! i love the first photograh, so simple and clean, i'm sure, yummy too!

now i crave some beef..

Anonymous said...

thank you =) I had been craving beef for a while too myself.
Just make sure you buy the right cut of beef for the right method of cooking :)

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