A date night special.
However you enjoy your steak cooked, the simple additions of homemade chips, fresh greens, and quick peppercorn sauce will make it a perfect Friday night treat.
Ingredients (serves 2)
2 x sirloin steaks (the best you can afford)
2 x potatoes
Handful of asparagus (6-8 tips per person)
Squeeze of fresh lemon juice
Garlic (optional)
1 x tablespoon paprika
50g butter
handful of whole peppercorns (20g)
150ml single cream
Basic Summary
- Cut potatoes into chips, an rub steaks with oil and season well
- Measure out cream and butter
- Season chips with salt, paprika and oil, then add to the oven for 30 mins
- Melt butter in a pan with crushed peppercorns, then add cream
- Reduce until thickened
- Sieve out larger peppercorns (optional) and set aside
- With 10 mins left on the chips, start frying your steaks to your desired steak doneness
- Rest steaks for 3-4 minutes, and fry asparagus and garlic in the pan during this time
- Reheat peppercorn sauce and serve
Prep.
TIP: Read through the full recipe before starting.
Cut your potatoes up into chips, about an inch in thickness
Peel and crush the garlic (if you want to add it to the asparagus when cooking)
Get the steaks out the fridge, rubbing with olive oil and season generously all over with salt and pepper
Measure out your butter and cream
Make.
{Preheated oven at 200°C}
TIP: Timing everything well is important in this dish as you want to serve your steaks after a few minutes of resting. Therefore all other parts need to be ready for the same time in order to serve.
The plan is to get the chips in the oven and note the time they will be ready and work towards this time for serving. The chips can keep warm with the oven off if needed, so being slightly later is better than too early and waiting for chips to cook!
– Chips will be 30 minutes minimum to cook well.
– Steaks will be 10-12 minutes including the rest time.
– Peppercorn sauce can be a 10 minute job depending on how thick you want it. So we make that as early as possible and reheat for serving.
– Asparagus takes 3-4 minutes in the pan when the steaks are resting.
Pat dry your chips with a paper towel and add to a mixing bowl.
Then add 1 tablespoon of olive oil, a big pinch of salt, and the paprika. Then mix well so it covers all the chips. Now add the chips onto a large oven tray with grease proof paper on.
Add to the oven for about 30 minutes, or until your preferred crispness.
Now to crack on with the Peppercorn sauce straight away as planned. Add the peppercorns in a pestle and mortar to crush. If you don’t have one, add to a bag and smash with a rolling pin!
Add the butter to a small pan on a medium heat and let it melt. Adding the crushed peppercorns when melted.
Add the cream, season with salt and stir well.
TIP: You can add brandy or some beef stock if you like, but this will make the sauce thinner and require a longer time to simmer and thicken back up.
After about 4-5 minutes on a medium heat sieve the mixture into a bowl and add back into the pan to get rid of all the larger bits of peppercorns. (unless you prefer to keep them all in)
Feel free to add some whole peppercorns back in the sieved mixture as well.
Reduce to the desired thickness and set aside.
Hopefully you still have a good 10 minutes before the chips are done now, so you can get the steaks on.
Preheat a non-stick pan to a medium to high heat, then add the steaks.
Depending on the thickness and how you like it, cook the steaks on each side. Turning once or twice to get them nice and brown all over.
TIP: Knowing how long to cook the perfect steak will come with practise, and depends a lot on the level of heat and thickness of the steak. As a result it can be easier to try and judge by the texture when prodding the steak in the pan to decide how long left, rather than blindly using a timer. By all means time as well to give you an idea, but you want the steak to feel slightly less cooked than you prefer it. So medium rare for medium and so on. The cooking process will continue slightly when resting.
Once cooked, rest the steaks on a plate for no less than 3 minutes.
During this time, slightly clean the pan if a bit burnt and add a touch of oil if needed, keeping on the medium to high heat.
Add the asparagus and fry for a few minutes whilst the steak is resting.
At this point you can also reheat your peppercorn sauce a little, ready for serving.
Squeeze over fresh lemon, and add the optional garlic for the last 2 minutes of frying the asparagus.
Hold your steaks up for a second to let the resting juices fall off before serving up.
TIP: You can even add some resting juices to your peppercorn sauce.
Serve steaks with chips and asparagus, with peppercorn sauce on the side.
Prep. Make. Enjoy. 