(upbeat music)
- Hey, I'm Ben, one of the chefs at Sorted Food
and today I'm gonna show you how to cook steak two ways.
First up, a classic rib eye
and I'm gonna teach you all the tips
and tricks to get the most out of it
and then we're gonna do a more affordable cut that will
still be delicious.
(upbeat music)
First up, the classic steak.
Now it's very subjective with food
but here at the Sorted studio, we love rib eye as a steak.
It's marbled with gorgeous fat,
which is full of flavour when you render it down.
It's not the cheapest but for that reason,
I'm gonna show you a whole bunch of tips
so that you can cook it confidently at home
and get the most out of it.
Number one, I would say always pick
a steak that's really relatively thick.
That way you've got more chance of searing the outside
and keeping the middle a nice kind of medium-rare.
Secondly, make sure it's up to room temperature
before you start to cook it.
Third, we're gonna season the top of the steak
with oil and salt, whilst we pre-heat a pan
and you want a dry pan, up to a nice high heat.
Are you ready for the best sound ever?
- [Mike] I am.
(steak sizzling)
- So I've put it oil and seasoned side down
and then you can oil and season the other side
while it's in the pan
and you want to cook it over a medium to high heat to get
a wonderful sear, for probably three, four,
even five minutes before you flip it.
You can see how much fat has already rendered out
and because it marbles all the way through the steak,
personally I don't actually think rib eye is
best served rare, so aim for medium-rare at least,
possibly even medium and that way it will be
unctuous all the way through.
- [Mike] Unctuous.
- Unctuous has made its return.
- [Mike] His favourite word.
- Give it a flip.
Yeeeaaahhhhh!
Once it's had
about the same length of time on the other side,
I'm gonna start to sear in the edges.
It's more of an aesthetic thing and to be honest with you,
we're about to baste it in extra butter
and loads of delicious flavour, so that will help as well
but because it's so thick,
you want to make sure that you've seared in the edges.
Add the butter to your pan along with some fresh herbs,
whatever you've got.
I've gone for thyme and a crushed clove of garlic.
It's gonna infuse the butter.
As the butter browns and foams, you're gonna baste it
over the steak.
Some would say this is unnecessary but for me,
it's what makes a steak excellent
and if you've gone to the effort of spending, in this case,
£11 or £12 on a single steak, plenty for two people,
you want to get absolutely the best you can out of it.
A little bit of butter
and a little bit of extra time basting will do that.
I'm gonna baste it for another two or three minutes
and then transfer it to a plate to rest.
(upbeat music)
Whilst our steak rests, I'm going to show you how to make
an incredible pan sauce, again, without a recipe,
a simple ratio.
Today to go with our steak,
I'm gonna do peppercorn sauce, classic
but this and so many pan sauces are based on the same ratio.
That ratio is one part spirit,
two parts double cream,
three parts stock.
Plus you can add in a flavour.
Today we're doing the peppercorns but you could
also add in fresh herbs or sautéed mushrooms
or whatever you'd like.
So first in goes your one part spirit.
Today I'm using brandy but you could use whiskey or rum.
If you're doing pan-fried fish and you still want a sauce,
something like vodka or Pernod is delicious
and that scoops up all the flavour off the bottom of the pan
and is perfect.
Once that's bubbled away and reduced by about half,
you're gonna add in your next ingredient
which is not the cream, it's the stock.
So three times as much stock.
Obviously we're cooking beef, I've gone for beef stock.
You can do chicken stock, you can do veg stock,
you can do fish stock, you can even do tomato juice
if you want like, a pan tomato sauce.
That also works.
In the case of peppercorn sauce,
I'm gonna add the peppercorn in now
with the beef stock as it reduces down.
If it's fresh herbs, you might want
to leave those 'til the end
but pretty much any other flavour you're adding,
now's the time.
The peppercorn sauce needs lots of black pepper.
And this isn't whole peppercorns, this is coarsely crushed.
You still want this over a pretty high heat,
like when you cooked the steak
and you're gonna reduce it down by at least half.
That is now so intense on beef stock,
brandy, peppercorn,
now you mellow it out with the cream.
(upbeat music)
(Mike chuckles)
- [Mike] Oh yes.
- And now you heat up the cream and reduce it down
to a consistency that you want to spoon or pour.
Oh and I nearly forgot, you're gonna have
a lot of meat juices from your resting pan.
That can also go in.
(upbeat music)
I'm gonna slice the steak, now that it's rested,
on the bias because I think that looks great,
you can see into it and present it on the plate
with our mash.
(upbeat music)
Our second steak is much more affordable,
so we're gonna do a bavette
or it might be called flank in the UK.
It's a much cheaper cut.
At the moment, half the price of rib eye per kilo.
It's much leaner, it's had a lot of work during its life,
so it's got loads of flavour but it is a little bit tough.
So what I'm gonna do is show you
a couple of ways to make sure
that it still eats really beautifully.
The first of those is a marinade, so something that's going
to help break the meat down
and add flavour before you cook it.
So whereas the rib eye, we cooked it as it was
and then made a pan sauce,
this is marinade and flavour first.
Clove of garlic.
And then I'm gonna finely chop some rosemary.
If you haven't got a micro plane, you can finely chop
the garlic as well.
The French language is so beautiful.
Bavette, it basically means the bib of the cow.
(Mike laughs)
Salt and pepper.
Any red wine you've already got open.
If you're gonna choose one, go with one
with quite a high acidity.
Nice Pinot Noir.
So the marinade is one way, with the acidity of the wine,
to tenderise the beef.
The other one is just brute force.
So take a steak, place it on a board
and whack it out with either a meat tenderizer,
if you have one, I don't so I'm gonna use
a rolling pin and a fork.
It means you're also flattening it out.
It cooks quicker and it looks like you get more steak.
(rolling pin banging)
So a meat tenderizer is a small little hammer
with kind of spiky bits on it and you hit it out.
Rolling pin works just the same to flatten it
but then stab it.
So that's basically what you want to do.
The other way it can be done,
I'll flip it over and I'll show you, is to cross hatch it
with a really sharp knife.
If you've got a really sharp knife, just scratch it
like you would a squid so it curls up,
you can do the same with the beef.
- [Mike] You're getting too chef-y.
- That's why you're here, Mike.
You need to rein me in.
So that's the steak tenderised manually,
now it goes into the marinade to tenderise with the acidity.
Cover it and that is gonna store in the fridge
for at least a few hours, if not overnight.
And then it looks like that.
Not gonna lie, less attractive now
but it is full of amazing flavour and super tender.
Pat it dry.
So you don't want it to stew in the pan,
so we need to get rid of excess liquid.
Little bit of oil
and you're just gonna sear it in a stupidly hot pan
for about a minute on either side.
(steak sizzling)
The steak does still need to rest,
even though it's only very thin
and in that time, dress a plate with some salad,
some french fries or whatever you like.
You're welcome.
- [Mike] Oh!
- And that's what you're aiming for.
You don't want to over cook it but the bashing it out
and the marinating should tenderise it.
(upbeat music)
There we go, two versions
and if you could see the smile on Mike's face right now.
This is the prime cut, celebrate it
but also remember that pan sauce to catch
every last bit of flavour, one, two, three as a ratio
or a more affordable cut.
A few extra steps to marinate and tenderise
but the result is outstanding, you have to give it a go.
And talking of giving it a go,
if the idea of taking very accessible ingredients
and maximising their value mid-week to save you money is
what you like, then you'll absolutely want
to check out our Meal Packs app.
A chance to absolutely boss your mid-week meals
and right now, it's free for a month
and the steak recipe's on it.
What are you waiting for?
What are we waiting for?
Can we eat?
(Mike laughs)
- [Mike] That is a very good question.
Yes!
- [Ben] Right, I know you wanna try this bavette.
Wine, garlic, rosemary and still that lovely sear of steak.
- [Mike] Oh it's so charred and just amazing!
That is so tender.
- [Ben] £2.10 a steak, that was.
Bash it out, goes a long way.
- [Mike] Wow, that absolutely tastes
like restaurant quality, whoa.