Meat and Two Veg. Fancy Style.

So despite my declarations of loyalty to my little Blog unsurprisingly something came along to bugger them. To explain my month long absence could be rather complicated but to put it simply, a full time London based job, whilst still trying to maintain my Brighton citizenship along with my sanity and some semblance of a social life is not cohesive with a large amount of free time.

Before you get me wrong though, I enjoy the busy-ness and the new job. It is film production orientated and Old Street based and a steady income whilst learning loads are some of the larger perks of the situation. However. It is also admittedly rather dangerous regarding my retail habits. I managed to spend £50 in Urban Outfitters yesterday and then a further £70 in Zara (must open a saving account and start doing sensible things with my money).

But anyway back to the case in hand. This recipe is firm family favorite and with my little sister heading back to boarding school Sunday evening it seemed like a fitting way to set her up for the week. It is absolutely delicious but surprisingly light, given of course you don’t stuff yourself, but I must say it probably doesn’t exactly fit the Indian summer we’ve been subjected to over the last few weeks.

Serves 4

4 Venison Steaks at room temperature trimmed and lightly covered in olive oil and seasoned.

1kg floury potato, Maris Piper or something similar

1 head of cabbage, shredded

a couple of sprigs of rosemary

½ a red onion finely chopped

½ a garlic clove finely sliced

2 good knobs of butter

400ml red wine

400ml good stock, ideally chicken

1 dessert spoon red currant jelly

olive oil

salt and pepper

Firstly chop your spuds so they’re about the size of a big walnut and par boil them for a few minutes.

Drain them and let them sit and steam for a minute whilst you shred your cabbage.

Tip the potatoes back into your empty pan, cover them in a couple of good glugs of olive oil, season liberally and gently rough them up a bit. The idea is to get the edges of each potato to go a bit flaky and floury but these bits to stay stuck to the potato with the olive oil because this is the bit that will go amazingly crunchy when roasted.

Tip them out onto a roasting tray and nestle a few sprigs of rosemary rubbed with olive oil amongst them. Stick the whole lot in a hot oven say about 220 degrees turning every 15 minutes until they’re gloriously golden and crunchy (around 30-40 minutes).

Whilst your potatoes are roasting get on with your sauce, in a knob of melted butter and a glug of oil sweat the onion and when soft add a sprig of rosemary and your garlic. 

Sweat that until fragrant, add your stock and wine and leave to simmer until it has reduced by two thirds. At this point stir you can sieve the sauce if you want, I couldn’t be bothered.

Stir in the red currant jelly and whisk in a cold knob of butter to thicken the sauce slightly. Leave to keep warm.

Steam your cabbage and when everything is ready it's venison o'clock. 

Fry for 5 minutes on each side for medium and 4 on each side for rare, if you must have it well done go ahead and massacre it but you might as well go and have a chew on a pair of old leather boots. Just saying.

(Apologies for how fluro the photos are. My dad's kitchen lights combined with a crappy camera don't equal the most forgiving photos. )

1 Steak, 2 Sauces.

Now that I’m officially a graduate I’ve been spending a bit more time than usual at my dad’s house in London. Free electricity, a full fridge and cupboards upon cupboards of cookery books being a few of the many perks. It also however means I get to raid my dad’s pantry. If you hadn’t noticed, yes, he probably gave me the cookery gene.

This cupboard is like my own version of an Aladdin’s Cave; Kaffir Lime Leaves, Smoked Paprika, infused Olive Oils, I mean you name it and he’s probably got it so, for me, it is TERRIBLY exciting. Recipes that previously have been out of my reach due to being hamstrung by my more meager Brightonian spice rack and budget are suddenly throwing themselves out of cookery books and hitting me between the eyes. This recipe threw itself at me particularly hard so I chose to make it last week. 

This is a Jamie Oliver concoction (with a few tweaks) and I largely undertook it because it seemed ridiculous.

Steak…with two sauces?! I mean, firstly, surely you are just going to loose your steak amongst all those flavors, which is a waste in itself, and secondly how on earth are a peanut sauce and a salsa verde going to marry up?

The answer?

Absolutely, flipping, fantastically. Seriously.

I’m not joking. I mean the peanut sauce is bloody awesome in itself (a week later my dad has STILL got the last of it in the fridge because it was so good he can’t face throwing it away), as is the Salsa (we finished enough for 4 between the 3 of us in one sitting) but put them together, in your gob, with a well cooked piece of meat, a crunchy chip and your literally reaching culinary nirvana. I’ll shut up now.

For the Steaks:

4x 200g sirloin or rib-eye steaks

1 clove of garlic, halved

For the Peanut Sauce:

100g roasted peanuts

50g seasame seeds

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp dried cumin seeds

1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

juice of 2 limes

100ml extra virgin olive oil

1 or 2 green chillies, chopped

1 tbsp honey

salt and pepper

200ml water

For the Mexcian Salsa Verde:

Bunch of coriander, chopped

Bunch of Mint, chopped

1 clove of garlic, chopped

1 red chilli, chopped

4 large spring onions, chopped

2 tomatoes, chopped

juice of 2 limes

Firstly get your steaks out of the fridge to bring up to room temperature while you make your sauces.

For the peanut sauce, in a dry pan toast the peanuts and then add the sesame seeds, oregano, cumin seeds, thyme, paprika, chilli and garlic and cook for another minute to release all their flavors.

Tip the whole lot into a food processor with the rest of the ingredients and whiz it until smooth. Taste and adjust, it may need more sweetness or sourness, it can all depend on how juicy your limes were and how hot your chili was etc. When your happy with it tip it into a bowl and move onto the salsa.

Throw all your chopped ingredients onto a big board and keep chopping until it is very fine. Then put it in another bowl, season, add the lime juice and a good lug of extra virgin olive oil. Again, taste and maybe adjust until you're happy.

For the steaks get a frying pan or griddle pan smoking hot and rub your steaks with olive oil and sprinkle with fine salt (no pepper, it will burn) then fry on each side to your liking, to add a bit of extra flavor you can rub the exposed side of the steak with the halved garlic clove between flips.

Let the meat rest, then carve and serve with the sauces and chips.