I wrote this recipe as a birthday present for a friend after having followed it myself, so you may notice some random capitilisation and the odd bit that makes no sense. This also has nothing to do with Rome.
Preparation time: an evening
What you will need:
1 steak, Fillet or Sirloin (Make sure it is of decent quality, with plenty of white fatty flecks and of suitable breeding, much like myself.)
Decent rock salt
Milk and Butter (full fat, salted. There are no diets in this kitchen)
- Sprig of fresh Rosemary
Olive Oil (Preferably Extra Virgin, again much like myself)
A portion of petit pois
A whole potato
Several bottles of red wine (not necessary for cooking but I find it helps to lubricate the whole process)
Cooking process:
The first step in any cooking process should of course be to pour yourself a glass of wine.
Take the steak out of the fridge and grind some rock salt onto each side of it, as soon as you’ve taken it out of it’s packaging and then leave it for 40 minutes. No need to cover, even if your apartment is infested with flies, as maggots take a few days to fully gestate on open meat anyway.
By this stage you should have finished your first glass so I would go ahead and pour yourself a second.
On a chopping board get your potato and marvel at this root vegetable in all its diversity. This one potato could become anything from a packet of crisps to a rudimentary painting tool for a toddler. We are going to mash it to a paste. Cut the potato into small pieces as though making some nice square cut chips, except you aren’t. Also you should have washed it at some point, but I’ll assume you’ve done that naturally as you aren’t an animal. Put a large pot of water on to boil and go pour yourself a third glass of wine whilst you sit and rest for about 10 minutes. Cooking is hard work, there's a reason why Gordon Ramsey is so stressed, resting is key. After you’ve rested open up your second bottle and pour yourself your sixth or seventh glass of wine.
Throw the potatoes into the boiling water whilst adding some salt. Some people say you should skin the potato but I find this is an unnecessary cruelty, after all fur is murder. Put a second separate pan of water on to boil and sit back and marvel at your cooking skills. Look at you, you’re finally becoming an adult. After the potatoes have boiled for about 10 minutes the skins should be slightly coming off them and they don’t stick to a fork when you stab them. I find at this stage of the evening that stabbing a potato and watching it slowly slide off a fork is surprisingly enthralling. Feel free to take some time to be enthralled. If they are not suitably enthralling then leave them for another 5 minutes then come back.
Strain the potatoes and add a good sized knob (heh) of butter. Brutally mash them whilst adding small amounts of milk until they look like mashed potatoes are supposed to look like. I often find it is useful to imagine the face of someone you don’t like in the pan, like Donald Trump, David Cameron or Linda who played games with my heart and left me as merely a shell of the former man I was. Put Linda’s mashed face straight onto a plate and pour water into the dirty pan to soak, dried mashed potato is like concrete. No really, people are actually considering it as a viable building material, look it up, I can wait.
Now comes the crux of the cooking, which is good timing as this tends to coincide with when you’ve got a really good buzz going. You will need to be brave for this part so pour yourself another glass and down it in one, as though it were the final tequila shot you force yourself to drink to build up the courage to go dance with that person who's waaaaay out of your league.
Get out a nice big frying pan and pour a little oil into it. Turn the heat onto full and wait until the oil runs freely, as if it were water. Prepare your portion of peas to one side and steal yourself. The moment has come.
Throw that steak on there and marvel as a column of steam and sizzling fat erupts from the pan and spits out in all directions, simultaneously blinding you and melting the skin right off your upper body. I usually do this part topless in order to establish dominance.
Whilst braving the storm of hot fat hailing down upon you throw the peas into the boiling pan we put on earlier. Remember that pan? You thought I had forgotten it in my excitement didn’t you?
After the steak has been cooking for 30 seconds you will want to get in there and flip it. This may seem akin to entering Dante’s seventh level of hell as the fat and oil rains down on you from seemingly impossible angles but I can assure you that with enough wine in you, you can manage.
Another 30 seconds will pass and the sizzling will have died. If you like your steak bloody and rare this is when you should take it off. If you are a sub-human and prefer it a little more cooked then turn the heat down a little and let it cook for another minute on each side. If you like your steak anything more than a medium then cook for a longer time. I’m unclear on exact timings beyond medium as I would rather boil my genitals in the very cooking fat we just used than do that to a decent piece of meat.
Take the steak off the pan and leave it to rest for around ten minutes. Strain the peas from the pan and place them on your plate. Now look at your plate and think to yourself ‘It looks beautiful, but not quite pretentious enough’ and then artistically, but ultimately uselessly, place your sprig of Rosemary on top of the steak. Instagram as needed.
Open yourself up your third bottle of wine and liberally apply Savlon to any and all burns you will have received, congratulations, you’ve just cooked yourself the perfect steak, pat yourself on the back and pass out into your mashed potato.