Steak Night - Sainsbury's

Friday night was steak night, it was Mr Sainsbury?s turn to provide the meaty goodness this week. Fillet Steak marinated in Soy, Chilli and Ginger with Spring Onions and a Herb Salad. I got the steaks for £4.70 a piece, they were a very bright shade of red suggesting they hadn?t been hung for long or at all. I perhaps should of got a photo before I marinated them to show you what I meant but hey ho. To be honest they didn?t look great initially I was pretty dubious about how good these were going to be.

Ingredients:

2 x Fillet Steaks (about an inch thick)

For the Marinade:
4 Birds Eye Chilli, Green and sliced really thin.
4 Spring Onions, sliced into very fine rounds.
About a thumb sized knob of Ginger, Julienned (cut into Match Sticks)
Good glug of Soy Sauce...
Juice of a Lime.
If like me you are cooking A?la Floyd (i.e. Drunk) You might want half a glass of white to deglaze the pan later)



For the Salad I was pretty limited to what Sainsbury?s had so I?d included;
Coriander,
Basil,
Parsley,
Watercress.
I?d softened and ever so slightly caramelised a couple of Spring Onions as well whole to drape on top as a little pretty pretty.



Ok so you?ll want to marinade this meat for as long as possible over night would be best. I?d only got a few hours and luckily the Lady was running late and by late I mean she?d gone to the pub and ?missed? her train. This is really easy post pub food but first of all let the meat get up to room temp so take it out half an hour before cooking. Pop your frying pan onto the heat and let it heat up for a couple of minutes before even thinking about putting the meat on. You can get the salad ready before you cook the meat. Take out the stalky bits if you can be bothered. In my opinion it?s all good so just tear up the herbs and cress and arrange in a visually pleasing mound in the centre of your plate. You may want to drizzle a little oil over the salad now but you may not it?s up to you. If you pan is now smoking you are ready to cook. Drizzle a little oil onto your meat and smush it in a bit and place the steaks into the pan on by one. For a steak this size rare is about 1 minute a side, for medium rare just less than 2 minutes a side. Cook the meat without moving it for the time allotted on each side and allow the rest for at least 5 minutes. Take your pan off the heat and let it cool for a moment or two, deglaze with the white wine and add the remaining marinade and add the meat juices to your dressing. Don?t worry about the fact you are adding the raw marinade the residual heat from the pan will cook this out and it should reduce down quite quickly to nice sticky dressing. Now your meat has rested slice and arrange all fancy like on your salad, add the dressing and stuff it into your steak hole!



All in all it came out ok, the meat was a bit disappointing though for the price but considering I drunk a bottle of wine waiting for the Lady to come home the fact we had anything to eat was pretty amazing! The frustrating thing about supermarkets seems to be the disparity in quality, the rise in ?finest? or ?best? brands just allows supermarkets to drop the quality of the standard offering to the lowest level possible so you either have a shit steak for an acceptable price or an acceptable steak for a shit price. Next on the hit list is going to be Morrison?s we?ll see what they can do.