Scallops

Sous vide pepper steak and scallops with hollandaise sauce

Posted by Gary

So, it’s another week and another non-recipe post. This post is more like a status update of what I cooked on Saturday night.

Sous vide pepper eye fillet steak with scallops and roe with broccolini and hollandaise sauce

My weight loss motivation has got a bit stagnant, so trying new things has also suffered a little.

I wanted a moderate dinner, but still something special for a Saturday night. I went with eye fillet steak again because it cooks without a lot of fuss, and if you treat it well, it will be tender and moist.

I wanted something with a little kick too so I tied up the meat and pressed in some freshly ground black whole peppercorns, iodised salt, and garlic powder. As always, I pulverise my spices and salt together in a heavy mortar with a nicely weighted pestle. 

Salt and Pepper Eye fillet steak

Because the temperature of the water bath would never exceed 55 °C, there was no chance of the pepper burning, so I was happy to coat the steak in pepper before cooking.

I’m not sure if you’ve ever burnt pepper, but it has an unpleasant, acrid odour and you never want to sear a pepper-coated steak for too long.

Salt and Pepper Eye fillet steak

While I was shopping, I saw there was scallop meat in the delicatessen display. The scallop meat with roe and the alimentary tract was $29 per kilogram while the scallop meat sans roe and the alimentary tract was $34 per kilogram. The roe adds a lovely coral colour to the dish, so I went with the cheaper option. For those readers who don’t know me, I never remove the alimentary canal from an invertebrate, and I wasn’t going to start. Life’s too short for that palaver.

I’ve described how to make hollandaise sauce elsewhere. It’s hard to go past a hollandaise sauce with steak and scallops. Rather than pour or spoon the sauce over the steak and scallops, I decided to serve it in a small bowl and use it as a dipping sauce. The dipping sauce approach was fantastic. As I loaded my fork with a little sweet broccolini, scallop, and steak, I dipped that meaty lollipop into the hollandaise sauce and got a good coating over everything the tines of my fork had penetrated.

Vacuum packed Salt and Pepper Eye fillet steak

The scallops were just seared in the skillet as I was caramelising the surface of the steak after it had finished cooking in the water bath (55 °C for 2 hours). The heat barely licked the scallops.

The broccolini was dead easy. After washing the broccolini in a large mixing bowl, I let the broccolini drain and then doused the green vegetables with some olive oil. I then added a squirt of golden syrup and ground over some iodised salt. With my hands, I massaged the sweet, salty, oiliness into the heads of the broccolini being gentle with the broccolini heads so as not to be too rough with the delicate end.

Precision cooker and water bath

I then arranged the broccolini on a lined baking sheet and put them into a hot oven for 15 minutes. 

Plating up was dead easy, after allowing the steak to rest I cut off the bindings and then with a sharp knife (I used a cooking knife my middle daughter gave me as a father’s day gift last year) I sliced into the soft tender moist flesh to reveal blushing joy. There’s nothing like a nicely cooked piece of muscle meat, red, moist but not running with its juices.

Sous vide pepper steak

Sous vide pepper eye fillet steak with scallops and roe with broccolini and hollandaise sauce

I put the steak onto a dinner plate which I had warmed on top of the water bath and then arranged the scallops. I poured the freshly made hollandaise sauce into a small bowl and put it onto the plate. The last thing to be added was the oven-cooked broccolini. The heads looked limp rather than the tumescence they once had, but I knew those flowery heads would taste sweet and salty, and when coated with the creaminess of the hollandaise, the taste would be unique and so delicious. 

Sous vide pepper eye fillet steak with scallops and roe with broccolini and hollandaise sauce
Sous vide pepper eye fillet steak with scallops and roe with broccolini and hollandaise sauce

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Me in my Spam Hawaii shirt holding a tin of Bacon Spam
Me in my Spam Hawaii shirt holding a tin of Bacon Spam with Acacia pycnantha (Wattle) in the background.

Garlic butter steak and chips

Posted by Gary

Garlic butter sous vide steak, scallops and hot chips

Last week I made steak pizzaiola and used eye fillet steak which I cooked sous vide. I was impressed with how tender the meat was. I went and bought some more. Because butter makes everything better, I thought I’d add a pat of butter when I served it. To extend the butter theme a little more, I’d seen someone added melted garlic butter to hot chips and I thought I’d give that a try too.

Dedicated to all the dairy farmers who bring joy to our lives through cream and butter.

Tonight I used Lurpak butter
Garlic butter steak and chips with scallops
Garlic butter steak and chips with scallops

I wondered what could enhance garlic butter steak and chips? Why not a little surf and turf, or should that be reef and beef? I bought some scallops and you know that scallops and butter are a match made in heaven. Well, at least I hope heaven has butter, bacon, steak, pasta, noodles, and pizza.

The garlic butter chips are not low carb I know. They do taste good though and I don’t care that I bought frozen chips and cooked them in the oven. After all, I am all about convenience eating.

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Recipe

It’s important to read the recipe before cooking because the timing of processes needs to be understood.

Garlic butter steak and chips

Garlic butter steak and chips with scallops on a cold night in Canberra. It’s been snowing. I hate the snow.

Steak and scallops

  • Eye fillet steak
  • Iodised rock salt
  • Black whole peppercorns
  • Garlic powder
  • Butter
  • Garlic
  • Dried oregano
  • Scallops
  • Hot chips

McCain frozen chips

  • Butter
  • Garlic

Garlic butter

  1. Get the butter to room temperature.
  2. With a fork mix in the crushed garlic and dried oregano.
  3. Form a disc in the bottom of a bowl and refrigerate until it’s time to plate up.

Sous vide steak

  1. Remove the steak from the packaging.
  2. Trim the fillet and bind the muscle fibres with some cooking twine.

  3. Grind some rock salt and whole peppercorns in a mortar with a pestle. Once the salt and pepper have been coarsely ground add in some garlic powder and mix.
  4. Season the steak with the salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

  5. Seal the steak in a vacuum bag.
  6. Cook in a water bath at 57 °C for 2 hours.
  7. Remove the bagged steak from the water bath and then remove the steak from the bag.
  8. Dry the surface of the steak with absorbent paper.
  9. Sear the steak in a cast-iron skillet.

Scallops

  1. Dry the surface of the scallops and sear in a hot skillet.

McCain SuperFries

  1. Cook according to the instructions on the packaging.
  2. Once the chips are cooked put them into a large metal mixing bowl.
  3. Using microwave radiation melt the butter an mix in some crushed garlic.
  4. Pour the melted garlic butter over the hot chips a little bit at a time and toss the chips at the same time.

Plating up bit

  1. Place the steak on a dinner plate along with the scallops and chips.

  2. Get the cold disc of garlic and herb butter and put it on the steak so that it melts as you eat.

Disclaimer I have no culinary training nor qualifications. This post is not intended to convey any health or medical advice. If you have any health concerns about anything you read, please contact your registered medical practitioner. The quantities are indicative. Feel free to vary the quantities to suit your taste. I deliberately do not calculate the energy for dishes. I deliberately default to 500 Calories or 500,000 calories because I do not make these calculations.

Photographs

This is a gallery of photographs. Click on one image and then scroll through the photographs. I’ve been told the gallery doesn’t always work on older versions of Windows Internet Explorer. I suggest Google Chrome or using a Mac.

  • Eye fillet steak
  • Eye fillet steak
  • Eye fillet steak Salt Pepper Garlic powder
  • Eye fillet steak Salt Pepper Garlic powder
  • Eye fillet steak Salt Pepper Garlic powder
  • Garlic butter steak and chips with scallops
  • Garlic butter steak and chips with scallops
    Garlic butter steak and chips with scallops
  • Garlic butter steak and chips with scallops
  • Garlic butter steak and chips with scallops
    Garlic butter steak and chips with scallops

Questions and answers

What’s with eye fillet steak two weekends in a row?

Normally I like to cook scotch fillet steak because it has the eye fillet and the cap or deckle meat. The deckle meat is the best because it has seams of fat running through it and when cut against the grain it is so tender, tasty, and juicy.

The eye fillet is more lean but it is supremely tender. With the butter the natural beef flavour is augmented.

Why not cook the scallops sous vide too?

I’d like to cook scallops by sous vide but I only have one precision cooker and the timing would be out of whack. That said, I could have cooked the steak first and then refrigerated it and after the scallops were cooked I could have reheated the steak quickly in the water bath as the scallops were finishing. Maybe next time.

Would garlic butter steak and chips have made for a nice fancy pub meal?

Yep, I mean steak and chips is classic pub fare. I expect though in a pub, gravy would replace the butter. Maybe I should have served some tomato sauce too.

Final thoughts

  • Do you like garlic butter steak and chips?
  • Are you a fan of scallops and butter?
  • How do you like your hot chips?

Prawn scallop and speck fried cauliflower rice

Posted by Gary
The Yummy Lummy Cooking for one podcast
The Yummy Lummy Cooking for one podcast
Prawn scallop and speck fried cauliflower rice
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Prawn scallop and speck fried cauliflower rice after a relaxing Saturday at home

Prawn scallop and speck fried cauliflower rice

Today was the first day since the long weekend that I’ve been able to work from home and not go into the office. I did dial into a teleconference but I got stuff done. The grocery shopping was relaxing. A walk to the shops for a coffee was relaxing. Watching some TV was relaxing.

Dedicated to a friend who gave me moments of light hearted joy during the week.

Frying cauliflower rice, mushroom, prawns, scallops, speck, and spring onions. Gary Lum.
Frying cauliflower rice, mushroom, prawns, scallops, speck, and spring onions.
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