Steak with pepper sauce. A match made in heaven, joining an illustrious list that includes hot cake and ice cream, vinegar and chips and Irish butter succumbing to the steaming heat of a freshly broken baked potato.
As a kid, I fondly remember the holy trinity of flavour pairing. Very rarely, we would have steak at the weekend. Most dinners of note included a baked rooster potato, wrapped in tinfoil and cooked in its skin; this was part one. Next, the potato would be smashed open and prodded with a fork until fluffy; this is where the butter was added. As that melted, pepper sauce was poured on top. I’m talking the packet powder stuff, whisked to the boil with milk and transformed into a sauce to rival all others. A good handful of sea salt and the fork was returned to the potato to emulsify everything together. This was proper eating.
Monica, my mother, certainly wasn’t leaving the steaks to rest before serving; she was already on to the next project. This provided another great moment, as the juices from the steak would run across the plate and join the potato party.
While these flavours and dishes were simple, the pleasure they provided inform all the fancier cooking that I do nowadays. Restaurant dishes tend to look artistic, served up on fancy plates by fancy people, but what they are essentially attempting is to create food that evokes the same feeling as those baked potatoes all those years ago – comfort.
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This week’s recipes involve just a few ingredients but plenty of technique. The magic of these dishes lies in cooking the sauce in the same pan as the steak, absorbing all the meaty juices and seasoning as it reduces. The addition of red wine vinegar adds some zip to the sauce, while the quality of the pepper is key to the success of the dish.
The best example of this classic dish comes from Bistrot Paul Bert in Paris which sources Sarawak pepper for the job. Hailing from Malaysia and Borneo, the flavour is mellow in fire and warming with hints of citrus, allowing the quality of the meat to shine through.
For the steak sandwich, I’ve also added a simple recipe for home-made horseradish cream. If you try nothing else, give this a go for your next roast beef dinner.
