On Sunday, Damien and I made more than 4 hours of demonstrations / tastings to Sial, on the stand Edge Bia. We cooked 4 recipes based on Irish meat (lamb, beef, pork and duck) and our public loved. You can find some photos on the page Facebook de Bord Bia, on this link.
At the end, as he stayed 30 minutes before the intervetion of other leaders and than we had another nice room of net of beef, Damien decided to top up the fifth recipe, according to the inspiration of instant.
We therefore prepared a very basic recipe of beef skipped in Guinness, dish which cooks in 15 minutes show in hand and if you have some quality meat, it is one delight.
Damien was of benefit there to give golden rules to follow to cook a good steak.
In view of very interested looks of the public, I am sure that many learnt things and it gave me desire to write this ticket, to make you be of benefit all this particularly useful information in our everyday kitchen.
The first one golden rule: they don’t cook a meat which goes out of the refrigerator
Take out your steaks of the refrigerator 30 minutes before cooking them and even more if you cook a roast (it applies besides to all meats and to many other food). Why? Not to create a thermal shock and avoid that the meat is rest cold indoors gets pissed outside but (this reminds you of anything?).
Golden rule N ° 2: salt your steak before cooking
I don’t want to come back into scientific considerations on salting before or after cooking, I let Hervé This him make (you can however find an extract of its analysis on subject, on this link). On the other hand, I recommend you to read the ticket of leader Simon on the effects of salting on the reaction of Maillard, about which I will speak farther. It is exciting and it is on this link.
Here, I speak you more practical reasons, knowing that you will be more comfortable to salt your meat on a board, easy, rather than above a hot frying pan. Take the time, please, of dredge the salt in an uniform way, so that a piece of meat isn’t more salted than other one. I don’t know if you have already noticed a leader salting a piece of meat, he makes it with a lot of attention and doesn’t throw the salt anyhow.
Besides, if you salt your steak in the frying pan, the salt is going to settle on the meat but also in quoting and if you make a sauce, she risks being salted more than what you thought of it.
Golden rule N ° 3: A steak with some butter isn’t grabbed, unless it is clarified (no margarine either)
When you grab the meat, your stove must be very hot and ideally in more of 150°C, to create what they call a reaction of Maillard (see note) which is possible only if the water present naturally at the surface of the meat evaporates fast. If you use some butter, this one burns between 120°C and 130°C, what is going to give a bad taste to the meat and even to be harmful for your health. On the other hand, you can use some clarified butter (butter cleared out from its small milk) which supports it strong temperatures. Otherwise, prefer an oil which can attain strong temperatures, as the sunflower oil for example.
Generally, it is preferable to grease your stove, so that the meat doesn’t stick but also because the fat allows a good transfer of heat.
If you like the butter, add rather a piece of butter on your meat at the time of savouring it. If you add grasses, it is still better.
Golden rule N ° 4: they don’t touch the meat during the first minutes of cooking
When you deposit your piece of meat on the hot frying pan, don’t touch it any more. It is necessary to let happen what is called the reaction of Maillard (see note) which has the effect of tanning the surface of the meat but also of creating a kind of rind. This rind is going to protect the heart of the piece of meat and allows tastes and juices to stay concentrated indoors, what will be important during tasting.
Rule N ° 5: the saucepan isn’t covered
As you must cook pasta with big bouillon, withdraw the lid which you put so that the water arrives at boiling faster, you would risk making go beyond the saucepan.
Rule N ° 6: oil in the water isn’t topped up
If you followed the previous rules, you will have understood that it is completely useless to top up some oil in the water.
Pasta which stick it is:
Let be a bad quality of pasta
Or pasta poured into a not scalding water
Pasta cooked in a too small saucepan
Pasta gets pissed in tremble and not in big bouillon
Rule N ° 7: they watch
Is this not Ingrid!
It isn’t the instant to call his girlfriends. When you put pasta in the scalding water, it is necessary to be ready to intervene to prove the force of the fire under the saucepan and to test cooking. You will always find a cooking time on your packets of pasta but according to the hardness of the water, they aren’t always correct. 2 or 3 minutes before the end, taste a paste to test its cooking.
Good pasta, this asks for a little of attention.
Rule N ° 8: as soon as they are cooked they are very quickly drained and a little water of cooking is kept to link the sauce
And they are drained in a strainer and not with the aid of one the skimmer (if if, I have already seen somebody making it). No way to leave it in the water by thinking that they are going to keep warm.
Rule N ° 9: pasta in sauce and not the opposite is put
While your pasta cooks, prepare the sauce and make it heat, that is in a jumper or in a salad bowl that to you will support in heat. Add pasta in the sauce with possibly a little water of cooking, blend and serve.
Some people make slightly to cook pasta and end up cooking them in the sauce.
Regulate 10 N °: pasta right away is eaten
Nothing to make, pasta, it is a bit as the rice, it is never also token warmed up.
The rule on top of that, if you must prepare your pasta absolutely for advance
Add a fat when they are still very hot because by getting cold, the starch gels and you are going to finish with a block of pasta. Even if you add a fat later, this one will never be in osmosis with pasta.
What I made when the children were smaller: I drained pasta, I put them in the sauce (either in a little butter or in a little olive oil), I blended, I put them in a dish in gratin with some cheese grated over. David didn’t have more than to put the dish in the oven by coming back from the work.