A Simple Meal Dressed Up with Red Angus Steak

It’s not every day that I’m willing to share the secrets of my kitchen. However, after much begging and pleading from the fans, I have decided to relent and show the play by play for tonight’s meal.

Bear in mind that when I cook (unlike when I bake or make chocolate) I don’t actually measure anything. I just eyeball it and it usually works just fine. However, that being said, I will try and give a rough estimate on quantities, just so that readers have a starting point. You can pretty much adjust everything else to taste. Also, I sort of do more than one thing at a time and bounce back and forth between dishes. Hopefully it’s not too confusing.

Today’s Meal

• Grilled Beef
• Macaroni (with ground beef in vegetable and tomato sauce; created from leftovers)
• Tofu in Miso Sauce
• Grilled Zucchini
• My team of assistants include:
• My Cuisinart Griddler – I purchased this griddler on December 31, 2006.

  The story about this griddler is that during my first real trip to Chicago, I discovered Corner Bakery. After having such awesome sandwiches, I swore off ever eating another one of those crappy sandwiches that they serve at Tim Horton’s. I got home from my trip on December 30, and the next day, I ran out directly to Home Outfitters and spent the best $119.99 I’ve ever spent in my entire life. Ironically, it’s actually gone up in price over the years! This baby is awesome. But I’m digressing from the food.

  

• Jamie Oliver 18cm Saucepan & 24 cm Frypan

  

So first things first. You must start with a good cut of meat. Here I have half a kilogram of top sirloin grilling red Angus beef.

Next, pat dry with a paper towel and trim off the odd pieces where the grain runs in a different direction.

I don’t trim off the fat because, personally, I like the taste it infuses into the meat during the cooking process. If I’m serving dinner for a crowd that’s super health-conscious, I’ll trim off the fat prior to service. Otherwise, I just let the diner cut the fat off by themselves.

I generally don’t like seasoning with pre-ground pepper, but when grilling meat, I absolutely refuse to season it with the pre-ground Club House stuff. So using, freshly ground black peppercorns and ground cayenne pepper season the beef. I take particular care at to really work the pepper into the beef.

If you want to use other herbs and spices, you can; but with good quality beef, pepper is usually enough.

Now is a good time to heat up the griddler. I turn the selector onto grill and set the Grill-Panini temperature dial to “Sear.” Also, half fill the saucepan with water and turn on the stove to bring the water to a boil.

Zucchini (aka courgette) next. I like a bit of a striped pattern so peel strips and then cut diagonally into 1 cm slices.

Wash five pieces of soft tofu and cut into slices; 3-4 slices per brick. Sprinkle with salt and leave in colander.

At this point, the griddler should just hot enough to start cooking stuff (the light on the temperature dial will light up green). Now the magic begins. Yay!

Open the griddler so that both hot plates are open. Lay the zucchini slices onto the hot plates and grill them lightly. After flipping them over, sprinkle salt on one side. It should take about 10 minutes to grill the two large zucchinis.

While the zucchini slices are cooking (don’t forget to check when they need to be flipped), chop some garlic and green onions (aka scallions). This is in preparation for the tofu. Take 1 tablespoon of miso paste and mix it with a bit of olive oil so that it’s a little less “pasty.” I guess you could also use water, but I find by using a bit of oil, it doesn’t splatter as much when you put it into the hot pan.

When the pot of water is boiling, pour in the tofu. Let it come back up to boil and then take the pot off the heat. Leave it covered for about 10 minutes, then strain.

Rinse out the pot and refill halfway with water and place it back on high heat to bring to a boil.

When the water boils, pour the macaroni in and turn the stove off (but do not remove the pot from the heat).

Once the zucchini is cooked and removed from the griddler, close the griddler and let the plates heat back up until the temperature light comes back on. As soon as it’s hot enough, place the beef onto the grill and close.

Depending on how thick the beef is and how you like it done, it should be ready within 5-10 minutes. I pulled it off the grill after roughly 6 minutes and let it rest on the cutting board for 15 minutes.

Heat up the frypan so that the pan is super hot. Pour the miso emulsion in and place the chopped garlic on top of the miso paste. Using a spatula, work the miso and garlic over the pan, careful not to let the garlic burn. After a couple of turns, pour the strained tofu into the pan with 50 mL of water and cover.

After a couple of minutes, stir and add in green onions. If the sauce seems a bit runny, use a bit of corn starch and water to make a slurry and add to thicken the sauce. Once the sauce is boiling, pour the tofu and sauce into the service bowl.

Wash the pan and heat it back up.

From a previous meal, I had some leftover blanched broccoli. I chopped up the broccoli, a clove of garlic, some onions, and smashed some capers. When the frypan is screaming hot, pour 5 mL of olive oil and throw all this stuff in.

Once it’s hot, pour in about 250 mL of the leftover vegetable & tomato sauce and bring to a simmering boil.

Strain the macaroni, and add to the sauce. Mix until the sauce is boiling and then serve into service plates (side note: yes, I was lazy and did not wipe the sauce off the edges of the plates. It’s dinner at home, so yeah, didn’t bother).

By now, the beef should be well rested. Slice the beef into 3 cm slices and layer atop the macaroni.

The meal was demolished. There was nothing left, which is usually a good sign of delicious meal.

If you enjoyed this, let me know and I’ll consider doing more of these.

But just so you know, photographing while cooking is no easy feat. I did sustain one minor little burn on my upper arm (from a flying spatula and hot pasta sauce), but I’ll live.