Dear Reader,
It feels like it’s been ages since I’ve cooked steak for dinner. The last six months have seen me working out my pressure cooker “muscles”.
I was sharing text messages with a dear friend last night about simple pleasures. You know, looking out on a pleasantly warm evening, snacking and chatting, and then enjoying a steak and salad dinner.
It got me thinking; I want to get my lips around a nice juicy steak.
How have you been feeling lately with the news of the Omicron Variant? The case number predictions have kept me on the edge of my seat. At present, we’re seeing doubling rates of 2 days and intracellular viral replication rates an order of magnitude higher than other lineages.
It’s a great time to be alive if you’re a microbiologist. I wish, however, this was just a laboratory experiment and not real life. Please stay safe. Stay home if you feel unwell. Keep yourself distant from others by at least 1.5 metres. Wash your hands with soap and water as often as you need to. If soap and water are not available, carry and use an alcohol-based hand rub. Observe respiratory hygiene and if you feel comfortable, wear a face covering, preferably a surgical mask. Get immunised. It looks like everyone will need a booster for any real protection against severe disease caused by infection with SARS-COV-2 Omicron Variant.
Ingredients
- Eye fillet steak
- Raw prawn meat
- Cherry tomatoes
- Baby cucumbers
- Capsicum
- Iodised salt
- Black pepper (coarsely ground)
- Green peppercorns
- Horseradish cream
- Beef stock
- Butter
- Plain flour
Instructions
Steak
- Buy some steak from the supermarket or the butcher.
- Unwrap the steak and dry the surface with kitchen paper.
- Place the steak on a wire rack over a tray.
- Season the steak with generous amounts of salt.
- Truss the eye fillet with cooking twine, so your meat keeps its shape and doesn’t fall apart.
- Place the steak into the refrigerator overnight to dry brine.
- When you’re ready to cook the steak, put them into a vacuum bag and vacuum seal the bag.
- Set up a water bath and raise the temperature to 54 °C.
- Cook the steak at this temperature for 2 hours and 10 minutes.
- Remove the steak from the bag and dry the surface of the steak with kitchen paper.
- Coat the surface of the steak with horseradish cream.
- Pound some whole black peppercorns with your pestle in a mortar and clad the exterior of your creamed meat with the pepper.
- To avoid burning the pepper and creating an acrid mess, heat a generous amount of butter into a cast-iron skillet and sear the surface of the pepper-crusted steak quickly.
- Allow the eye fillet to rest. You may wonder, why does steak cooked in a water bath (sous vide) need to rest? It doesn’t; however, it does give the person cooking dinner sufficient time to attend to other things. I mean, if I drank wine, I’d probably have a sip or two. The same would apply if I drank beer 😉
- Toss in the prawn meat and cook quickly. Avoid overcooking.
Gravy
- When you open the vacuum bag, retain the juices from your meat in a small jug.
- To your juices, add some beef stock.
- Make a roux with some butter and flour.
- Once the roux is ready, add the meat-juice augmented stock.
- If you want a little more kick, add some green peppercorns.
- Make the gravy to the consistency you desire.
- Transfer the sauce to a jug or, if you’re fancy, a gravy boat.
Salad
- Do I need to explain how to make a salad?
- I cut some vegetables and put them in a bowl.
- I drizzled over some extra virgin olive oil and seasoned it with freshly ground iodised salt.
Plating up
- If I had guests (note no one has ever visited where I live), I would heat the dinner plate.
- Place the steak on the dinner plate, add a pat of butter on the steak, and then top the eye fillet with the prawns.
- Add some salad next to the steak.
- Spoon some gravy over the prawns and steak.
- Give thanks to God for, amongst other things, great friends, wages to buy food, and the skills to prepare and cook food. Plead with Him to use the food to nourish your body and mind and seek His assistance to be a better person.
- While the steak is tender enough to cut with a blunt spoon, use a steak knife to cut your meat.
Last post for the year
I think this will be the last post for the year. Next weekend is Christmas Day and Boxing Day. I plan to be elsewhere.
If you’re a regular reader, I want to thank you for taking the time most weeks to read my food musings. I’m grateful for the friends I’ve made in the blogging world, especially those who regularly comment on my posts.
Not a regular reader? Thanks for reading this post. Please feel free to leave a comment.
If I know you in real life, thanks for reading and getting to know me better, I’m grateful for your time.
Final thoughts
- When was the last time you cooked a steak?
- Do you prefer a salad, hot chips, or potato mash with your steak?
- How do you like your steak cooked in terms of doneness?
Dry brined eye fillet in bondage 
Dry brined eye fillet in bondage 
Pepper Steak ready to be seared 
Sous vide eye fillet pepper steak, prawns and salad with peppercorn gravy 
Sous vide eye fillet pepper steak, prawns and salad with peppercorn gravy 
Sous vide eye fillet pepper steak, prawns and salad with peppercorn gravy 
Sous vide eye fillet pepper steak, prawns and salad with peppercorn gravy Sous vide eye fillet pepper steak, prawns and green peppercorn gravy
Hope you are enjoying time with your family Gary and you had no issues with cancelled flights to Brisbane.
Thanks, Sue. I’m now in Brisbane and having the best time 😊
I hope your Christmas and New Year break is fabulous with good food and fun.
Have a wonderful Christmas Gary! 🙂
Thank you very much
I hope you and yours have a peaceful relaxing and joy-filled Christmas
We are laying low for the weeks prior to Christmas just to minimise our chances of getting COVID. My husband has had his booster but I get mine next week. And all Christmas is about outdoor gatherings and Rapid Antigen tests! Merry Christmas Gary! I hope it’s a wonderful one 🙂
Thanks Lorraine
All going well I’ll see my kids for the first time in more than a year
I hope you and Mr NQN have a safe peaceful relaxing and joy-filled Christmas and New Year
Steak, prawns, and salad are my favorite things! It has been a while since we’ve cooked steak, but we will be cooking a steak on Christmas day. Enjoy your holidays, Gary! I can’t wait to see what you cook up in 2022. Stay safe!
Sounds like a fantastic Christmas meal!!! I hope you enjoy all the great foods you’ll eat on Christmas day.
Wonderful steak, Gaz. The peppercorn gravy looks fantastic and you made making it sound so easy to make. I haven’t cooked a steak by itself in a long time. I did cut up a steak and cook it with a tomato-based sauce pasta earlier this week. Given a choice I like hot chips or potato mash with my steak – and a steak well done.
It’s uncertain times we live in. Definitely taking a lot of precautions these days and being mindful as and when I have to go out.
Seasons greetings to you, Gaz. Wishing you a wonderful holiday season ahead. Always enjoyed your blog and look forward to what you have to share with us next year.
Thanks so much Mabel. I hope you and yours get some physical and mental relief from all that is going on in the world over the Christmas New Year period.
Please take care. I see the case numbers for where you are and it’s a worry.
I hope you have an abundance of good food and good company.
Thanks, Gaz. It is a worry with the case numbers here. More case numbers always means a higher chance the health system gets overwhelmed. It is also a worry to see that social distancing is pretty much non-existent. Limiting my outings and going to places where there are less crowds to do my bit.
Hope you get to have many good feasts over the holiday season, and you get some well deserved time off.
Thanks Mabel I hope we all stya safe and enjoy Christmas as much as possible in a safe manner.
This is very lovely and I appreciate your sous vide instructions. Last night saw surf and turf here as well with chips, Brussels sprouts and zucchini. It is a good summer dish to occasionally enjoy wherever you live and much safer than venturing out to dine. Our coastal town is full of tourists. I still choose to wear a mask whilst shopping. Thank.you for a year full of fantastic posts and Merry Christmas to you and your family x
Thanks Merryn and thanks for always commenting and contributing to the Facebook group. I hope you and yours have a wonderful Christmas and New Year period.
I am getting a sous vide for my Christmas so will be examining your posts in great detail Gary!
Fantastic! I hope you cooking sous vide as much as I do
Merry Christmas, Gaz! Hope you get to see the family. Here on Plague Island, it looks as if we’ll be going into lockdown in all but name. At the moment, the advice is not to go to parties/restaurants/pubs and limit gatherings to three households and testy, test, test… if you can get hold of the blinkin’ things! I’m not a big steak fan and its ages since I’ve cooked one, but if I do I prefer rare, with salad and a nice sauce – the way you’ve prepared yours here.
Oh Emma, I’m so sorry about your situation. At work I’ve been watching the international data carefully. Omicron Variant is spreading like one of our bushfires. I hope you stay uninfected and healthy.
Merry Christmas and I hope you have joy and peace with your family.