Friday night dinner

Tonight's dinner was meant to be steak but for reasons too boring to go into the steak is going to have to sit in the fridge for another evening and something else will be rustled up for dinner tonight. 

My wife, a lapsed vegetarian, is not happy. She was rather looking forward to some meat.  

(Must come back to lapsed veggies another time...)

I think steak and beef cooking in general could be this years 'project.' Not wanting to sound all OCD about the kitchen but over the past couple of years I've become rather obsessed with one ingredient or style of cooking in an attempt to, if not produce the perfect example, certainly produce the very best version that I can. 

The year before last it was roast and mashed potato, last year was roast chicken and slow roast pork belly... this year just might be steak and beef. It's not like I start every year with a 'project.' It's just that i get obsessed with something and end up cooking it more and more to try and get it better and better. It's more that the ingredient picks me... than the other way around.


I love beef (I am English) but all too often it can be totally tasteless and disappointing in texture. Even the best beef can need a lot of help and the lightest of touches to bring it to life. 

Without blowing my own trumpet I now do a pretty damn good roast and mashed potato and give me a half decent chicken and, I like to think, I can cook it in any number of pretty tasty ways. When it comes to the belly pork is such an incredibly complex and wonderful product that I think you could cook for 50 years and still learn new things.  

Over the next couple of days I'll post my way of doing roast & mashed potato and a roast chicken. No doubt everyone will look at my efforts and insights and go... 'well, yeah... of course you do it like that.'