Steak Date (sirloin steak, tomato salad with shallot and par sauce, potato gratin

Dinner on 21^st June)

Sirloin steak, tomato salad with shallot and pare, potato gratin, more salad and bugget 

As we had fishy mains these days, Mr. Husband demanded sirloin stake. We usually get nice pieces from a Yorkshire based cool butcher Ginger Pig in Marylebone. Allens in Mayfair also offers very good quality meat. Once we had a blind taste and concluded, Ginger Pig is for us!! We call our steak dinning as a "date" although it happens at our place. 

Shostakovich Piano Concerto No 1. in C minor, Op.35 is an essential BGM for our stake date  and it ritualises the flavour, texture and the atmosphere.

Tomato salad with shallot and pare is popular menu at our dinning and never missed appreciations. As tomato season started, let me introduce this menu.

Ingredient: mini-tomatoes (8-10), shallot (1/2), pear (1/4), dill, cinder vinegar, olive oil, salt and black pepper

Tomato salad 

1. Boil water in a deep pan while preparing cold water in a deep bowl
2. Chop shallot as small as possible, soak these pieces into water in a bowl with a teaspoonful salt for 3 mints. Then drain them with a net and place them on a paper towel to remove the moisture
3. Put tomatoes into the boiling pan and keep heating them for 20 seconds then immediately take them out from the pan and place them into the prepared cold water. In this process, you can easily remove out the skin of tomatoes
4. Chop dill into pieces
5. Put tomatoes without skin, pieces of shallot and dill, olive oil and cider vinegar (teaspoonful each), S&P into a bowl and grate the piece of pear and then mix everything well. Leave it at least for 10 mints before serving.

This tomato salad is very convenient especially when we invite guests or take it for picnic. Unlike the leafy salad, we can prepare it in the previous night and store it in the fridge. In addition, the process of peeling the skin of tomatoes allow them absorve the pear-sauce and maximise the flavour of tomatoes.

For his slavic gene, according to Mr. Husband, potato gratin must be with our steak. I'll introduce this menu later. 

I make a larger portion of salad with the combination of different kinds of vinegars such as cinder and balsamic. Vinegars are considered to lower our blood pressure when they are taken with food. Therefore, they are essential ingredients for our dinning where we consume at least one bottle of wine each time. 

 In the very end of cooking the steak meat, I put a tablespoonful balsamic vinegar as well as the same amount of soy-sauce. Balsamic vinegar makes the flavour of fatty meat something light and fresh. Soy-sauce enhances the meet flavour.

Total time for cooking: 20 mins (excluding seasoning steak with salt and black pepper for at least 2 hours)

Total cost: 22.7 pounds (20 pounds for steak, 1 pound for tomatos, 1 pound for other veggies, 70p for bugget).  This number looks a bit expensive as one home dinner, however, this is a "date". If we consider to have it at a steak restaurant, this can be reasonable. 


If we eating out for steak, we usually go to Gaucho Grill http://www.gauchorestaurants.co.uk/. Their selection of meet and the preciseness of cooking (rare, medium rare, etc.) are amazing.