The Sacred Art of Eating

This post ought to have been entitled Love Me Tender as we’d cooked Ed’s Tender Rump, but I’m more of a Beatles fan than an Elvis Fan.

• Steak Slice with Lemon and Thyme

This is the first recipe I’ve cooked from the Workday Winners section of the book; odd given that workdays account for 5/7ths of the week. Anyway; I got home from work not really hungry as there’d been sweeties in the office, so Dougal and I headed out too look at some flats for sale (dull) and returned, ravenous, to cook at about 9.

This recipe has the great advantage of all cooking together in a very straightforward fashion. Whilst the meat’s frying, you make up the post hoc marinade. Whilst the meat is marinading, you cook the silly broccoli. (The ones with the very long stems). Whilst you slice the meat, the broccoli get tossed about in the now-meaty marinade. The whole dish was on the table in less than 20 minutes, start to finish.

Let me tell you, it was wonderful. We went with Nigella’s advice re it tasting good cold, and cooked a whole 550g of rump steak between the two of us. Sadly I hadn’t bought extra broccoli so we didn’t get any of that cold. (The silly broccoli were scrummy- the stems tasted almost like asparagus- and greatly enjoyed by both of us, so not silly at all.) The leftover meat went back in the marinade overnight and then into mayonaisey pitta breads the next day for the most awesome sandwiches my mouth has known for some time. The broccoli tasted just magic, all zingy in their lemony thymey coating, and the meat was meaty and tender and soft.

My only complaint, and this is a fault of mine rather than the recipe’s, was that the meat was actually a bit cold by the time we ate it. I think the combination of being marinaded in a cold ceramic dish, with chilly olive oil and fridge-cold lemon juice, and then being sliced rather slowly by an entirely inept carver (me) meant it wasn’t piping hot as it ought to have been. Next time we’ll warm the marinading vessel and maybe also warm our olive oil slightly.

Because believe you me, this meal will be repeated. We were discussing the economics of the meal; the meat had cost nearly eight quid from Marks & Spencer, which seemed (was!) a lot. However, it did two of us two meals each, working out at £2 per serving. Given that without the left over meat, one of us at least would have ended up eating a (boring) packaged sandwich at £2.50 odd, that seems a pretty good deal to me. Did I mention that as well as being good value it tasted AMAZING???

We finished off with some ice cream and butterscotchy sauce, for good measure. And lots of rump jokes!

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