The restaurants, cafes, delis and bathroom appliance stores around me all do pretty excellent food. So it's tempting to live like a New Yawker, and eat out for every meal. Not only is this tempting, it's actually cheaper than buying good ingredients and cooking for yourself.
This would be disrespectful to my new Ikea kitchen unit, or Bekväm, to give him his proper name.
So, what to make?
I hadn't had any good steak since I arrived, so I hunted down the classic NY cut at a local butcher.
The New York Strip. It's not a cut we have in the UK, but it's the centre piece of a T-Bone steak, so just ask for it.
Steak with tomato salad
Serves 1 Preparation time: Up to 60 minutes Cooking time: 10 minutes
Ingredients:
New York Strip steak (at least 1 inch thick)
A large handful of Cherry Tomatoes
3 or 4 Spring Onions (scallions in the US)
Small teaspoon of Pesto
2 Garlic cloves, sliced lengthwise
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper
Method:
1) Season your steak lightly with salt and pepper. Pour on a small amount of olive oil then rub this into the steak with slice of garlic. The steak needs to be room temperature before it's cooked, so if you've just taken it out of the fridge it might need up to an hour to warm up. If it's cooked while cold the meat will tense up and you'll be left with a tough and rubbery excuse for a steak.
2) While your steak is warming up, chop your cherry tomatoes into halves or quarters (depending on their size). And slice up your spring onions.
3) Place the spring onions and tomatoes in a small bowl, spoon a very small teaspoon of pesto over them, then pour on a bit of olive oil and grate a generous amount of black pepper (there will be salt in the pesto, but if it's not enough then feel free to add a pinch of salt as well). Mix well. The sweetness of the tomatoes balances out the richness of the steak, while the basil in the pesto enriches the mix.
4) Five minutes before you want to cook your steak, put your pan on the heat and get it as hot as it can be. Whether it's a frying pan, griddle pan or BBQ, the principle stays the same. The hotter the pan, the better the colour on the outside and the more easily you'll achieve a pink result on the inside. You won't need to oil the pan, there should be easily enough fat in the steak. It will still generate quite a large amount of smoke, so you may want to open windows, unplug the smoke detecter, turn on a fan, etc...
5) Cooking times depend on your preference on meat. I like mine medium rare so I'd go for 3 minutes on either side. 4 minutes a side for medium, 6 minutes for well done (you heathen). But this depends on the thickness of the steak and the heat of your pan. As Mark Zuckerberg once said, "When in doubt, give it a poke". There is a good guide to how it should feel here:
How to cook steak
6) Once it's cooked, let it rest for 4 minutes or so. Juices will seep out of your meat (ohh err) as it relaxes, but these can be poured back over it when you transfer it to a serving plate.
7) Transfer to a plate, pour over the juices and pile the tomato salad on top. Give a final grating of black pepper if required.
In addition to this, I love to put a thin slice of blue cheese between the steak and the tomatoes. This melts into the steak and the salty richness enhances the steaks natural flavours. It's not to everyones taste, but if you've got some left over stilton (or better still Stilchilton) lying around, it makes a world of difference.
Steak and Salad. Done.
