How to cook a steak

What to look for when your buying steak
First task is buy the best steak you can find. This means avoiding supermarkets at all costs.
They sell bland weak meat from animals who have poorly raised and the meat is very rarely hung. If the meat has a high water content then when it is cooked the water turns to steam and breaks apart the fibres of the meat. This means that the steak will dry out when cooked.
To maximise profits supermarkets will try to maintain the highest water content possible by shrink wrapping the meat.
When red meat is hung (sometimes called dry aged) for a month or so a lot of the water is lost, this concentrates flavour but also maintains the structure of the meat leading to a more juicy steak. It doesn't make much sense that the less water a steak has the more moist it will be, but it's true.
The meat should be dark red, with even a tinge of purple. Compared to many supermarket cuts which are artifically luminous red. There should a light marbling of fat through the meat which will melt and transfer flavours.

Where to buy
I suggest farmers markets or your local butcher.
Don't be afraid to talk to the person behind the counter. Anyone who knows their stuff will happily talk to you about how long it has been aged or how the animal spent it's life.

Cuts
Good cuts for steak in order of cost are fillet, sirloin and rib eye. Fillet is tenderloin part of the cow which runs along the back of the cow between the shoulderblade and hip socket. It does very little work and is the most tender cut which also makes it the most expensive. Sirloin and rib eye are cut from the ribs which do more work which does add to their flavour but isn't quite are buttery as the fillet.

Cooking
Before cooking your steak pull it out of the fridge and rub it in olive oil and plenty of salt and pepper. Let it sit and get to room temperature.

Get a good heavy frying pan or ideally griddle pan and heat it up until you can feel a decent amount of heat coming off it.
Put your steaks in and they should sizzle, we want the meat to brown on the outside to provide flavour.

No matter how you like you steak cooked, rare, medium, well done it will take 10 minutes to cook.
very rare will take 2 minutes and 8 minutes rest
rare 3 minutes cooking 7 minutes rest
medium 5 minutes cooking 5 minutes rest
well done 10 minutes cooking

Once cooked to your liking remove the steak and pour some brandy into the pan and scrape the bottom of the pan to get up all the juices and bits of caramelised steak on the bottom of the pan. Add in some green peppercorns, the fresh ones you get in brine and then a small tub of single cream. Let this reduce and infuse while your steaks rest. The steak pictured above (which I ate in a great restaurant in Tignes) was topped with Fois gras, a slice of goose liver. This is the ultimate indulgence, but Fois gras is hard to get hold of in this country.

Serve with green beans, saute potatoes and a really decent full bodied red wine like a Cotes du Rhone or if your really pushing the boat out a Chateauneuf du pape.

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