Steak, frites and salad, Paris style

Everything I know about cooking I learned on the road while living or travelling abroad.

My first experience was in Paris after leaving high school, when I was perfecting my French at Alliance Francaise. I lived in a starving-poet style garrett in the 17th Arrondissement, near Champs Elysees, for free in return for some light household duties for my landlady - a divorcee and single mother with two teenage children and who was a fashion buyer at the famous Galeries Lafayette department store.

Part of the deal was that I make lunch for her children who used to come home from school for lunch. I thought I would get away with making them sandwiches, but my lack of culinary skills was discovered when I was told to prepare a ’simple steak, frites et salade’.

Shocked to find I did not know how to cook a steak, Madame Cochery took me in hand and I was soon cooking steak to perfection for my two charges.

This simple recipe for four can be expanded and refined as the occasion demands:

Seared Steak

4 1/2″ rib eye steaks (sirloin tips, New York cuts or tenderloin/fillet steaks can also be used)

1 tblsp extra virgin olive oil

freshly ground black pepper to taste

sea salt to taste or

1 tblsp soy sauce (optional)

For pepper steak:

1/2 tsp each of whole black, white and green pepper and whole mustard seeds

For sauce:

2 tblsp red wine or cognac

1/2 cup light cream

1 tsp French mustard

2 cloves of garlic Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Pinch of sea salt

With mushrooms

4 large flat mushrooms

1tblsp extra olive oil

1 tblsp soy sauce

2 cloves of garlic

Freshly ground black pepper

Preparation:

1. Dry the steaks on a paper towel, turn them in the olive oil, garlic and pepper and leave out until they have reached room temperature. Straight out of the fridge, the cold steaks will cool down the pan and the steaks will end up stewing instead of the juices sealed in. Add salt just before searing the steaks. Since I cooked my first steak, I have discovered that adding soy sauce really helps bring out the meat flavour.

2. If making pepper steaks, crack the peppercorns beforehand in a mortar or on a wooden board with the bottom of the frypan and cover each side of the steaks with the mixture.

3. Heat a ridged griddle pan (or use a BBQ) on high until smoking hot, add the steaks to the pan - two at the time if the pan is not big enough - and cook for one to two minutes on each side, depending on desired doneness. Place the steaks on heated plates at very low heat in the oven, while preparing the rest of the meal.

4. If making sauce, use a flat pan and deglaze the pan after removing the steaks with red wine or cognac and set it alight, add the cream, stir in the mustard and garlic, season and continue cooking for a scant minute until the sauce thickens. Pour over the steaks.

5. If adding mushrooms, remove stalks and wipe them outside, toss in the olive oil, soy sauce, garlic and pepper before adding them to the pan on their ‘heads’. Leave sizzling until juices start forming inside the cups. Place a mushroom on top of each steak. When cutting into the steak and the mushroom, the mushroom juices will flow and blend with the steak’s juices, making a very rich, flavoursome meal.

6. Alternatively, remove the mushrooms and slice thinly on a cutting board reserving the juices. Make the sauce and add mushrooms and their juices at the end.

Frites

‘Frites’ are simply thin cut chips or better known as French fries. These days, you can get good quality French fries from the supermarket freezer which can be cooked in the oven, following the instructions on the packet.

When making French fries from scratch, use a potato cutter which can quickly turn out fries from one potato at the time. I calculate one medium-size potato per person:

4 medium size Russet or King Edward potatoe

(red-skinned pontiac potatoes are also suitable)

1l light extra virgin olive oil or canola oil

1 tsp sea salt

Preparation:

1. Rinse the chips in cold water and dry in a paper towel. This will remove the high glychemic starch which affects diabetes and glucose intolerance. Heat up oil in a chip pan. Test the heat by putting in one of the fries and when the oil immediately starts to froth around the potato, put in the rest of the fries in a chip basket and lower them into the oil, leaving them to fry until just coloured.

2. Lift out the basked, shake off excess oil and leave it resting raised out of the oil while preparing the steaks. Just before serving, plunge the chips back into the oil for a second time and cook until golden. Line a bowl with paper towels to absorb the excess oil, empty the chips in the bowl, sprinkle with salt, shake to distribute the salt, pull out the paper towel, leaving the chips in the bowl and serve.

French Salad

For this simple salad, use  mignonette lettuce or a packet of any mixed green leaf lettuce leaves which blends deliciously with the herby French dressing.

1 mignonette lettuce or a packet of young mixed green salad leaves

Salad dressing

3 tblsp extra virgin olive oil

2 tblsp red wine vinegar

1 tsp mild mustard

Freshly ground black pepper

a pinch of sea salt to taste

2 tsp chopped chervil

2 tsp chopped tarragon

Preparation:

1. Wash the lettuce thoroughly, tear up the mignonette lettuce leaves into bite size pieces and dry on a paper tower or in a salad spinner.

2. Make salad dressing: In a salad bowl mix vinegar and mustard with a fork or small whisk, whisk in salt, pepper and add the oil gradually, whisking until the dressing thickens, add the herbs. Add lettuce leaves to the bowl and toss the salad just before serving.

3. Alternatively, make up several batches of salad dressing, omitting the herbs, and keep in a jar in the fridge and drizzle over salad with the herbs just before serving.

4. Serve with the steak and French fries.

Serves four.