dare I say it, comme il faut, although I am always happy
to be guided by the customer in this regard. If he or she
wants their steak well done, that is their prerogative. I have
to say I was much heartened when we cooked beef
Wellington for a seventieth birthday party of a hundred
and two people. The beef was cooked to a beautiful rosy
rare and we sent it out, anticipating a few requests for
some to be more cooked. It is a measure of how far we have
come gastronomically – or perhaps how orthodoxy has
taken hold – that we received no such request and every
plate came back clean.
33
January
STEAK AU POIVRE
Always best as a dinner for two in my book: considering the
expense, this is perhaps wise. Some people prefer using
white peppercorns; it is a matter of taste.
Serves two.
2 fillet steaks, weighing at
least 225g (8oz)
2 tablespoons black
peppercorns
40g (1½oz) unsalted butter
2–3 tablespoons oil
30ml (1fl oz) brandy
50ml (13⁄4fl oz) white wine
100ml (3½fl oz) stock (beef
or chicken, quite strong)
50ml (13⁄4fl oz) double cream
a squeeze of lemon juice
salt
Bring the meat to room temperature for about an hour.
Pound the peppercorns in a mortar with the pestle until
they are all broken – no more – then sieve out the dust,
saving this for another purpose. The peppercorns can be
ground in a blender or spice grinder, but great care needs
to be taken to ensure that they are merely broken so that
they do not burn.
Spread out the pepper on a plate. Press the fillets into
the peppercorns, pushing down so that the pepper adheres
to one side of the steak, and season the same side with salt.
Melt half of the butter in the oil in a small frying pan. Once
the butter is foaming, place the steaks, pepper-side down,
in the pan and let the meat colour for a couple of minutes.
Do not be tempted to move it around. Once nicely
browned, salt the exposed side of the steaks, then turn
them over and colour the other side. Once they are rare
(when pierced in the centre with a metal skewer that is
held to your lip, it should be just over blood heat:
42°C/108°F, if you prefer to use a meat thermometer),
remove them from the pan. Allow to rest on a plate in a
warm place, ideally a very low oven.
Pour out the fat from the pan and return the pan to a
high heat. Pour in the brandy and carefully set it alight.
Pour in the wine immediately and scrape up any
caramelised juices with a wooden spoon. Allow the alcohol
to evaporate to a syrupy glaze, then pour in the stock.
Quickly reduce this by half before whisking in the cream
and reducing slightly. Salt to taste, add a squeeze of lemon
juice, then whisk in the remaining butter and any juices
that have escaped from the resting steaks.
Serve the steaks with plenty of this excellent sauce,
some green beans and good chips.
WINE: Pepper won’t hurt good wine but the richness of
the sauce will require it to be matched with a bit of acidity
and freshness. Older wines may therefore suffer a little. A
Chianti or Brunello five to seven years old might be ideal.
34
Breaking the Rules
Pork Cheek Vindaloo
The first thing to remark upon is that vindaloo is usually,
but not always, made with pork. Perhaps because of Goa’s
mercantile history, perhaps due to an insensitive attitude,
the Portuguese had little respect for local habits, ignoring
both Hindu and Muslim proscriptions against the pig.
However, vindaloo’s singularity does not stop there. There
are lashings of vinegar and buckets of garlic, black pepper
and tomato. The more one looks at it, despite the spicing
that one expects – cumin, coriander, cardamom and
turmeric – it begins to look like a cover for what is
essentially a European dish, until one realises that it isn’t
very European either. Unlike British ‘curries’, bastardised
and adapted from Indian originals, it is a true hybrid.
Even within the extraordinary diversity of Indian
cooking, vindaloo sticks out like a sore thumb.
Synonymous in English culture with extreme piquancy –
at university we would compete to see who could eat
the hottest curries, a turbocharged vindaloo being the
ultimate test, one that I soon learned to flunk – a vindaloo
need not be that hot. But it should pack a punch.
I had been meaning to take on vindaloo for some time
when I was prompted by a reading of Fresh Spice, an
invigorating tome by Arun Kapil. Arun would appear to be
a bit of a hybrid himself, half Indian, half Yorkshireman;
he worked in London before settling in Ireland, thanks to
romance and the good offices of the Ballymaloe Cookery
School. His book attracted me not because it is eclectic –
I don’t want turmeric with ham, gherkins and Vacherin
Mont d’Or, thank you very much – but because of the
respect and attention with which it deploys those spices.
Not only should we be a great deal more circumspect in
sourcing proper fresh spices, we should also take a great
deal more care of them once we have them. Having
patiently