If you don’t want to cook your steak in a bathtub…

I believe that the best way to cook steak now is to cook it perfectly in a Sous Vide first then brown in a smoking hot pan, but this method is great if you are in a hurry. Costco sirloin steak is fantastic! They are 1 inch thick nicely marbled Aberdeen Angus steaks. I am afraid I have to cut them in half as a full steak prohibits any other items on the plate and I need my 5 a day ( and that is saying something from a big Iowa boy). Take the steak out of the fridge about 1 hour before cooking to get it to room temperature.

Time to prep the veg:
Broccoli is broken into florets and laid in steamer pan. Baby leeks are topped and tailed, then split the top and wash in lots of cold water to remove the sand or dirt.

At about 40 minutes before you want to eat it is time to make the French Fries with a Potato Chipper

The key thing when using the Tefal ActiFry is that you need to remove starch and also have very dry potatoes. Wash them really well in cold water to remove the starch.

Now at 30 minutes before dinner the potatoes go into the Tefal ActiFry

and cover with at most a tablespoon of olive oil. This will produce French Fries at less then 3 percent fat and that fat is olive oil, so almost good for you.

Put some water in the steamer and fire it up as we want it boiling in 15 minutes, putting the lid on helps. Add a knob of butter to a frying pan for the leeks, but don’t start it yet.

At 15 minutes before tea, put a grill pan on the medium high heat and splash a dollop of olive oil and then use a paper towel to spread it out. Count down time now, so start a timer and set it for 13 minutes and start it running. Put the steak on the grill pan, you should be able to hear it sizzling otherwise the pan is not hot enough (if you have an oven fan now is the time to turn it on). Now while you have a minute put the broccoli on to steam. At 11 minutes on the timer turn the steak over in the grill pan, but do NOT use a fork instead use tongs or a slice. The idea with the steak is to cook for 2 minutes turn repeat, until both sides have had 4 minutes (so the key times are 13,11,9,7). At each turn rotate 90 degrees so you get that XXXXX pattern. Then let rest for 5 minutes to finish.

At 11 minutes melt the butter in the pan over just a low to medium heat, warm but you should not hear it cooking as you want to sweat the leeks not colour them. Add the leeks and keep them moving with a spoon every now and then. The reason I cook them slowly and gently is to keep them sweet, especially the baby ones, if they get colour is seems to turn them slightly bitter.

So now you have about 5 minutes to sort out the sauces. In this meal I have three sauces:

Steak – Sauce Béarnaise
Broccoli – Hollandaise Sauce
Chips – Ketchup (of course)
Leeks – no sauce but a pinch of sea salt crushed between thumb and forefinger

Hollandaise sauce is a lovely creamy egg and butter sauce (so use it sparingly) with lemon juice as flavouring and is probably best known on Eggs Benedict. Béarnaise sauce does not have lemon juice but instead uses shallot, chervil, peppercorn, and tarragon for flavouring.

Oh and pour yourself a glass of house white, but no there is no reason to put the bottle away…

It’s all done so plate that sucker up and EAT: