Have ready 4 warm (but not hot) plates. Season the beef with salt and pepper. Heat a ridged grill pan until smoking, then sear the beef for about 2 minutes per side. Ideally, it should be eaten very rare in this dish. Transfer to a wooden board, leave to rest for a minute and then slice thinly. Lay the slices on the warm plates, scatter the leaves on top and shake over the olive oil. Put the pared cheese over the top and eat immediately.
Top of the Rump with Lemon and Parsley Butter
This is a tender muscle, taken from the cheaper end of the rump, with a strip of fat attached. In Portugal and Brazil it is known as the picanha, and thought far superior to a rib-eye or fillet steak. Unlike the skirt and flank in the previous and following recipes, it is grilled in individual helpings. If you like a peppery taste, add a tablespoon of crushed pink or green peppercorns to the butter.
Serves 4
4 top rump steaks
For the lemon and parsley butter:
140g/5oz unsalted butter, softened
juice and grated zest of ½ lemon
a large handful of very finely chopped parsley
freshly ground black pepper
First prepare the butter, putting all the ingredients in a bowl and stirring carefully until well mixed. Place the mixture between 2 sheets of greaseproof paper (or 2 butter papers). Roll it to about 1cm/½ inch thick and put it in the fridge to harden. When hard, remove from the fridge and use a small, round biscuit cutter to cut out discs (or other shapes). Leave the discs in the fridge.
Grill or fry the steaks, seasoning them with a little black pepper first. Ideally they should be served rare (see guide on here). Leave to rest in a warm place for about 10–15 minutes. Warm 4 plates. Serve the steaks with a disc of the lemon and parsley butter melted on top. Have some English and Dijon mustard ready on the table.
Flank with Tarragon Butter Sauce
Sometimes called skirt or bavette, flank is a cut taken from the diaphragm muscle of the beef animal. Here it is grilled whole, then sliced and served with a buttery sauce sharpened with shallots and vinegar. It must be cooked so it is rare in the centre or it will be dry. If you like steaks well done, I am afraid you will have to use conventional rump or sirloin.
Making the sauce requires a certain amount of patience, and a small, heavy-bottomed pan to prevent overcooking. It can be made in a food processor, however, if the butter is melted first and trickled in warm. Serve with green vegetables – the courgette salad is good, fried potatoes even nicer …
Serves 4–6
2 whole pieces of flank
a little olive oil
freshly ground black pepper
For the tarragon butter sauce:
4 tablespoons tarragon vinegar
4 tablespoons dry white wine
2 shallots, finely chopped
3 egg yolks
175g/6oz unsalted butter, at room temperature
a small handful of French tarragon leaves, chopped
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Season the beef with pepper, then rub it with a little olive oil. Set to one side (leaving it at room temperature).
Put the vinegar, white wine and shallots into a small, heavy-bottomed pan and heat to boiling point. Simmer until the liquid has reduced to 1 tablespoon, then remove from the heat and add 2 tablespoons of cold water. Leave to cool, then mix in the egg yolks.
Return the pan to a very low heat and whisk in the butter, one hazelnut-sized piece at a time, until the sauce is thick and glossy. Add the tarragon, then taste and season with salt and pepper. If it becomes grainy or begins to ‘split’, add a dessertspoon of iced water and whisk hard. Once made, the sauce will remain stable for half an hour or so if kept in a warm place; just whisk again before serving.
To grill the meat, set a ridged grill pan over a high heat. When it begins to smoke, lay the meat on the pan and cook for 2–3 minutes on each side, turning down the heat a little if it becomes too smoky. The meat will be rare in the centre. Remove from the heat and leave to rest in a warm place for 10 minutes. It should not be so warm that the beef continues to cook. Meanwhile, warm some dinner plates.
To serve, slice the beef across the grain and place a few slices on each plate, with a dollop of sauce beside it.
How to grill or fry meat
Very rare Sear the steak on both sides; a finger pressed on the surface will leave an indentation.
Rare Sear one side, then continue to cook until droplets of blood are visible on the surface. Turn the meat and cook the other side for an equal time. Some resistance should be felt when pressing a finger on to the surface.
Medium Sear one side, wait until juices (not blood) begin to emerge on the meat surface, then turn and cook the other side.
Other cheap cuts
The onglet is a muscle that connects the last rib to the kidney. It is brownish in colour and there is a faint delicious flavour of kidney. It is not generally used as a grilling steak in the UK, but if you visit a Continental butcher they will know it immediately – if not as onglet (the French name), then perhaps as lombatello (Italian), or solomillo de pulmón (Spanish). In America it is known as the hanging steak. A keen British butcher, with experience in cutting the Continental way, may be able to prepare it for you. Have a discussion when he hasn’t got an enormous queue.
The onglet weighs about 500g/1lb 2oz and, when trimmed of gristle, it can be grilled or roasted whole (but left rare in the centre), then sliced and served with any of the sauces in the previous two recipes.
In Cork City in Ireland, butchers cut a muscle from the shoulder called the Jewish fillet. It is removed whole and totally trimmed of any connecting tissue or gristle, then – as with the other cuts – grilled whole and sliced. It can be served with the lemon and parsley butter, or with the tarragon butter sauce.
Other butchers elsewhere will have different names for the cuts in the recipes above. I once saw an Italian butcher cut the shoulder muscle as above, but my Italian was too appalling to ask about the name for it. Some butchers call onglet thin steak, others call it feather steak, because it is a V shape with grains leading from a central join. Disagreement over the terms leads only to a healthy debate between butcher and customer – I advise getting stuck in.
Cheap cuts in the pot
Almost any forequarter beef or shin meat is suitable for a slow braise. This is easy territory for butchers, who have loads to spare and are longing to get rid of it. If you can make time, encourage the butcher to give you some of the bones, to roast and then simmer with water the day before the braise so you have a ready supply of stock. Preparing stock takes just minutes – then all you have to do is wait until the pot has done its work.
A slow simmer of beef is the best winter food. Supplemented with mash and piles of roasted root vegetables,