Scrumptious Homecooked Lunch for 30+pax on 25Jul2015

youngest daughter was celebrating an important occasion & invited 30 friends to the house on 25.7.2015.^^

we had a really wonderfully scrumptious family-cooked lunch for her friends.

we did 13 delectable dishes!^^

& her friend made a professional pastry chef standard 2-tier cake. 🙂

wife's PIMMS

wife’s PIMMS cocktail

wife also made a PIMMS cocktail!^^

wife's PIMMS

wife’s PIMMS cocktail

i cannot hold liquor but i liked it very much & took maybe 5 or 6 cups & a bit drunk afterwards. 🙂

#1 wife made a lovely pumpkin tofu salad, something she picked up from marmalade after dining there. 🙂

#2 i did a vietnamese chargrilled pork cold beehoon. 🙂

we recently had this dish at mrs pho. i would think that my version was just as good. 🙂

#3 & i made a chicken ballotine.

#3 i steamed the first batch of 2 for 15mins. it was slight overdone.

the second batch i reduced to 12mins. & this was quite perfect! tender, juicy, flavourful.^^

helper's chicken nuggets

#4 helper’s chicken nuggets

#4 my helper did the chicken nuggets. pretty good too. 🙂

helper's deepfried chicken wings

#5 helper’s deepfried chicken wings

#5 & her chicken wings are a perennial favourite. 🙂

#6 i did a thai red curry sotong.

this the first time i cooked this dish. i fried in butter the sotong (squid) like i did for my flamed squid in spinanch veloute, but w/o flaming it (too tedious for quantity for 30+pax!). i tasted the sotong & it was excellent. i made the red curry gravy using the dancing chef’s ready mix with some cut yellow onions. the curry was just superb, so the combination was just crazy, a clear winner!^^

#7 for the chicken thigh, i pan-grilled on a very hot stainless steel pan. it was perfect, and daughters’ friends walloped the 6 pieces of deboned thighs from 3 chicken in double quick time. 🙂

unlike the red curry dish, for this yellow curry, i made it as a sauce similar to busaba’s to-die-for grilled chicken green curry fried rice.^^

there was actually an egg fried rice dish (which was also pretty good) to accompany the thai chicken & sotong curries but i did not have a photo.

#8 wife made an excellent creamy tomato pasta. she usually use crayfish from chinatown & for me it’s the best pasta ever.

this time, we could not get crayfish at chinatown so she used large prawns as proxy. 🙂

helper's sausage pasta

#9 helper’s sausage pasta

#9 & my helper made her crowd favourite cheese sausage spaghetti.

the whole family like this & all my children’s friends who came to the house previously all enjoyed this pasta by my helper. 🙂

#10 i made an excellent squid ink spaghetti this time, no errors, no horrors, no misses, simply fabulous, par excellence!

very nicely creamy, i added butter (only when tossing with fire off! – you don’t want to boil the butter).^^

& fantastic colour, al dente pasta & irresistible squid ink flavour with wonderful chicken stock & squid.

#11 & the tagliata di manzo had my daughter’s friends swooning & asking for more.

in the end i cooked a second portion, total 4x300g = 1.2kg of 150D grain-fed black angus ribeye.

birthday cake

birthday cake

daughter’s friend made her a totally professional pastry chef standard 2-tier cake.

birthday cake

birthday cake

plus lemon tarts & also cup cakes. every cake item was just fabulous! 🙂

#12 i made my usual tiramisu.

it was as good as ever. daughter’s friends finished an entire tub. ^^ i had a spare tub though. there was too much cake already so we saved that.

& my daughter arranged a photo booth which was a lot of fun, & her friends came in all kinds of costumes.

the photo booth guy just finished national service & is going to london for further studies. that’s what young people do a lot these days, with internet & social media offering excellent reach, connectivity & empowerment! 🙂

what a simply incredible, most enjoyable & memorable occasion to be savoured.

c.h.e.f andy

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Happy New Year 2015!

Happy New Year 2015 to all my friends
新年快乐
즐거운새해보내세요
Yoi otoshi o! よいお年を!

A very happy new year 2015 to all!

4 things that made me really happy & feel good in 2014 are-

my weekly 10km jog with a close friend & the 100plus, nespresso chat afterwards

my 2 close friends organising 2 birthday dinners – one for me at chef chan’s & one for my wife at tunglok central

visiting my relatives in china – 汕头澄海

learning korean & making 3 good friends in korea

i continued my jogging in 2014. timing had slowed significantly & i now usually do 10km at 1hr 13mins on the track where previously i did 1hr 9mins in 2013 and 1hr 6mins in 2012. on the treadmill in the gym i can still do 1hr 6mins. 🙂

also for 2nd half of 2014, i did mostly 2 times a week where previously i did 3 times a week consistently.

i had a lot of family time including with my son in london, and we also travelled to cambridge, lake maggiore & milan.

before that i had a wonderful vacation with wife & daughter to amsterdam, lake como, cinque terre & milan.

i spent lots of times with friends, including lots of home cooking. i am very grateful for their friendship. and on 22.12.2014, we had 128pax gathering at our alma mata raffles institution auditorium including 10 teachers. 🙂

xxxxxxxxxx

this evening, the children have their own programs. tomorrow, we have a 20pax homecooked family new year day lunch. so for this evening, my wife & i decided to have a simple dinner at home just 2 of us (二人世界). ^^

i bought a piece of USA Harris black angus ribeye from mmmm at west mall. it was expensive today, no discounts & price went north as well!

pumpkin tofu salad

pumpkin tofu salad

portobello

portobello

coffee from our jura machine

coffee from our jura machine

wife made the pumpkin tofu salad, portobello & onions. i did the ribeye. we had a very good sake to go with the meat.

nice, simple dinner. after that we slowly sipped a nice cuppa!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

c.h.e.f andy

Good 3pax Yakiniku Dinner @ Tajimaya Vivocity on 20Jul2014

yakiniku @ tajimaya vivocity

yakiniku @ tajimaya vivocity

we had always gone to aburiya. maybe it was familiarity & convenience, even though we knew that tajimaya by the creative eateries group had amex discounts.

this the first time we were dining here. amex offer was 1person off, so 33% discounts for 3pax alacarte exclude drinks. 🙂

looking at the menu we felt the prices were kind of expensive. another negative point was they did not serve tap water. so only 2 options – pay S$5.90++ for 1litre bottled water OR S$3++pax for tea (refillable). we ordered 3 tea, but if i go again, i am quite prepared to go w/o water during the meal. 🙂

i am ok with restaurants charging for water. however i think it should be like S$0.30 or S$0.50 or max S$1 & refillable, NOT S$5.90 for 1 litre water (bottled or tap).

kuroge wagyu karubi - S$54.90

kuroge wagyu karubi – S$54.90

we added the wagyu towards the end decided that since we were there, might as well gave it a try. the kuroge wagyu (黑毛和牛) karubi (short ribs) was good. not sure if worth money even with 33% discounts but it was good. 🙂

ribeye 120g - S$25.90++

ribeye 120g – S$25.90++

karubi 120g - S$25.90++

karubi 120g – S$25.90++

kurobuta pork jowl - S$18.90

kurobuta pork jowl – S$18.90

our first orders were the USA ribeye & karubi, and the kurobuta pork jowl. all were good though my wife preferred the beef shio (just salt) so we late had the wagyu order shio.

for me, both beef were good, and the kurobuta was best. 🙂

yakiniku @ tajimaya vivocity

yakiniku @ tajimaya vivocity

beef ishiyaki don - S$15.90

beef ishiyaki don – S$15.90

belly pork ishiyaki don - S$15.90

belly pork ishiyaki don – S$13.90

we had the beef ishiyaki don. we must be hungry as we added also the pork ishiyaki don.

how did tajimaya match up with aburiya. we missed our favourite kimchi chigae & the bibimen (cold spicy noodles) at aburiya. the ishiyaki don here i would rate as better than aburiya’s bibimbab as it had a lot more ingredients – quite substantial beef & pork. meat wise my wife still preferred aburiya. i am ok with both.

our dinner was S$186nett for 3pax after discounts. that though included the expensive wagyu & also S$30++ for sake & S$9++ for 3 tea.

for me, tajimaya was too ex w/o discounts. with discount, it was an alternative to aburiya though I preferred aburiya also for the kimchi chigae & bibimen. 🙂

c.h.e.f andy

Return to Petite Menu on 8Apr2014

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lavendar pumpkin soup

went back to petite menu with my RI buddies for 7pax dinner on 8.4.2014. kind of soon as i just had a great dinner here at petite menu on 22.3.2014, but enjoyed just as much. 🙂

we all decided to take the S$36 4-course tasting menu since it featured the restaurants’ signature dishes. it came with the lavendar pumpkin soup, smoked duck salad, a choice of mains = pan-seared seabass or chicken leg confit, and the deconstructed blackforest.

we asked if some would like to try the ribeye, they could top-up the S$5 difference (ribeye was S$20 & the seabass & chicken confit were S$15 on the menu). the restaurant was under no obligation of course to consent to our requests (& we were ok if they were unable) but for this time they agreed. so 2 took the chicken confit, 1 took the seabass & 4 had the ribeye.

#1 this the second time i had the lavendar pumpkin soup. everyone agreed the lavendar fragrance was overpowering (like eating perfume) but the soup turned out to be quite good when eaten with the wakame seafood. the crunchy granny smith apple balls added some unusual texture. everyone quite liked/didn’t mind it. 🙂

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smoked duck salad

#2 smoked duck salad – duck was good (a bit salty), tomatoes good with mesclun salad & some dollops of creme fraiche.

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chicken leg confit

#3 the chicken confit (rather unusual) looked & smelled excellent, and came with purple cabbage & pumpkin puree. 1 friend said it was very tender. 🙂

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pan-seared seabass

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pan-seared seabass

#3 the pan seared seabass with quinoa salad was also par excellence! i thought the taste & texture of fish was very good (usually seabass has mud taste & falling apart meat texture), the foam, the flavour of sauce, the artisan presentation which enhanced the flavours & dining experience made it on par with most fine dining restaurant standard. 🙂

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grilled ribeye

#3 the ribeye was a large serving for S$20, but it was quite disappointing. i had a very good onglet (hanger steak) here at last visit & ribeye is a better cut than hanger steak so i was expecting better. the cooking was actually ok, the browning (searing) & the medium rare doneness were ok, but the quality of the cut was not great. 1 friend left 2/3 of the steak with tendons etc though i finished mine completely. also the seabass was very good here so i would not order the ribeye next time.

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kaya toast

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deconstructed blackforest

my friends were impressed with the dessert. the deconstructed blackforest was excellent. we ordered 2 servings of kaya toast to share & they all liked it too except 1 friend commented the helping was too small c/w the blackforest.

the bill came to S$48nett pax, including 4x top-ups & 2 extra orders of kaya toast. everyone was full & happy! 🙂

c.h.e.f andy

Very Cheap French Fare @ Bistro Du Vin on 18Nov2013

grilled ribeye

200g 200-day australian grain-fed char-grilled ribeye

3-course set lunch menu include coffee

3-course set lunch menu include coffee

update = wow, had even better deal at bistro du vin zion road on 20.12.2013!

our dining quartet decided to take advantage of maybank 1 for 1 set lunch promotion & dined at bistro du vin on 18.11.2013. the usual price for a 3-course set lunch including coffee was S$30pax.  the menu had quite wide choices. there were couple items like pan-seared foie gras & 200day grain fed ribeye that required supplement – quite reasonable unlike some places where 1 in 2 items required supplement, however the supplement were separately billed & not entitled to the 50% discount. 🙂

baked camembert with apples, bacon, sourdough

baked camembert with apples, bacon, sourdough

foie gras ravioli

foie gras ravioli

leek & potato soup with deep fried oysters

leek & potato soup with deep fried oysters

rabbit terrine

rabbit terrine

seafood bouillabaise

seafood bouillabaise

duck confit & lamb sausage

duck confit & lamb sausage

beef short ribs stewed in beer

beef short ribs stewed in beer

i love leek & potato soup (& especially this one came with 2 kaki furai – japanese breaded oysters). however i was distracted by the rabbit terrine & ordered that. it was good, tasty, competent. i was happy with it. 🙂

1 friend ordered the leek & potato soup which came with 2 deep-fried oysters & was good as expected.

1 friend ordered the foie gras ravioli (the pink sauce didn’t look great or very appetizing to me like the beautiful pumpkin ravioli at al borgo did, but i think it tasted fine). the other ordered the baked camembert with sour dough. it looked ok but my friend said it was not as good as the other bistro du vin outlet at great world city.

for the main course, i ordered the beef ribs stewed in beer. again it was competent & the mash too, though in comparison my own spanish beef ribs was better because i had a very sweet & tasty vegetable ratatouille to match/balance the fork tender beef ribs whereas this one was very beefy & robust.

1 friend had the duck confit. he thought the black sheep cafe’s was better. 1 had the seafood bouillabaise with fish, clams, mussels, prawns. she said the fish was not great. anyway, bouillabaise & duck confit not my favourite. the smartest among us ordered the 200g 200-day australian grain-fed char-grilled ribeye – a S$10 supplement with no discount.it was ok really for the quality meat. i could smell the steak when it was served, & i had a small piece & it was excellent. 🙂

petit pot chocolate with magdaleine

petit pot chocolate with magdaleine

creme brulee

creme brulee

caramelised apple crumble, roasted apple ice cream

caramelised apple crumble, roasted apple ice cream

for dessert, i & another friend had the caramelised apple & raisin crumble with roasted apple ice cream. it was good, though it would please the eye better served on a dessert plate or long dessert dish. 1 friend had creme brulee which was recommended by the waiter & which she obviously enjoyed. the other had chocolate madaleine. the madaleine texture looked dense. i was about to say the ones at esso station looked better but my friend beat me to it. so this dessert was not good. 🙂 i had cuppaccino & my other friends had coffee.

overall, at normal S$30pax for 3-course set lunch including coffee, the food was competent enough & i didn’t consider it expensive. with maybank 1 for 1 discounts, the lunch was S$15pax (excluding the supplement) with 2 free wine for 4pax, well you could not get that at a hawker centre or coffee shop. so it was very cheap & great value.

c/w au jardin which served a S$45pax 3-course set lunch include coffee (there was also a S$65pax menu), which was also having the maybank 1 for 1 promotion including wine, i would return to au jardin (which i was to happy to pay full price at other time) rather than bistro du vin. the latter was competent & average whereas au jardin was fine dining in both food & presentation (& of course quite different ambience). eg my lamb saddle was exquisite, even better than many good lamb racks i had before.

on the service, bistro du vin was ok. the young male server was quite knowledgeable & responsive & answered my several questions on menu items & selection. 1 of my dining companion had poor opinion of the service though because he did not offer the wine to us automatically but only when asked & he replied that most people did not take wine during lunch. the attitude i think was ok, but maybe the training on managing customers was lacking here. but overall, the service again was competent & in my opinion rather better than many similar places.

au jardin’s service was of course much better. the staff were much better trained & professional, but then it was a different class restaurant so not apt comparison. 1 younger au jardin male staff though appeared to be not so great in his service attitude.

c.h.e.f andy

Best Value Top Quality Lunch @ Au Jardin on 14Nov2013

mud crab potato salad, caviar & truffle

mud crab potato salad, caviar & truffle

NB=i also had the maybank 1 for 1 set lunch at bistro du vin @ 1 scotts road a few day later. 🙂

had 1 of the best value lunch with top quality food & good servings at au jardin on 14.11.2013. 🙂

had a few degustation dinners at au jardin quite many years ago. they were the best. 🙂 the set lunches were more affordable, and though i didn’t go often, i enjoyed them at full prices when i did. so 50% discount would be a real steal! 🙂

menu decouverte

menu decouverte

grilled angus ribeye & gratin potatoes

grilled angus ribeye & gratin potatoes

macha with citrus mousse & ice cream

chocolate fondant

chocolate fondant

we decided to order 2 menu decouverte (discovery) & 2 menu tradition. i chose the latter as i do rather good beef myself at home so tried lamb saddle instead.

the mud crab truffle (top photo) looked fabulous with huge truffle servings & judging from my friends’ exclamations, jolly good! i tried a piece of truffle, but didn’t feel it had much flavour though.

winter truffle = the price of gold!

white winter truffle = the price of gold!

anyhow the server told us this white winter truffle was the best c/w other seasons, and it was actually white but oxidised & shrank in the fridge as time passed, so they had to use up quickly enough. this was supposedly the price of gold=priciest food in the world. sure didn’t feel like it for this serving size. 🙂

both my friends picked the grilled ribeye, medium & medium well. sure looked good!

the chocolate fondant (lava cake) & macha mousse & ice cream looked wonderful too.

menu tradition

menu tradition

braised escargot, quill eggs, chorizo, truffle

braised escargot, quill eggs, chorizo, truffle

panfried red snapper, tomberry tomatoes

panfried red snapper, tomberry tomatoes

grilled lamb saddle, olive puree

grilled lamb saddle, olive puree

frozen expresso bombe

frozen expresso bombe

popcorn caramelsauce ice crea

popcorn caramelsauce ice crea

petit four

petit four

for menu tradition, both of us took the braised escagot with chorizo. escagot was good but not my favourite, more gentle & fine c/w canned top shells. i not much into the herb esacarot style but like the gratin version at dozo, so thought i tried out the braised version. i loved the chorizo, very “pang”=fragrant.

for the mains, my friend’s panfried red snapper looked fabulous, beautifully pan seared to golden. my lamb saddle was par excellence, best i tried! 🙂 quite interesting the miniature tomberries!

dessert were great too. mine was caramel sauce & ice cream with popcorn, my friend had the bombe, which was frozen chocolate cake with curd drizzled over & milk froth.

the petit four (means little oven) macarons was not great, far too sweet, though the yellow ones with lemon flavour combined well in taste & moderated the sweetness. 🙂

the price of lunch with maybank 1 for 1 promo was S$22.50++pax for menu tradition & S$32.5++pax for menu decouverte, nothing less than a steal! 🙂

c.h.e.f andy

Pleasant Dinner @ Balzac Brasserie on 30Jul2013

beef tartar (S$32)

beef tartar (S$32)

today we decided to try Balzac , a French bistro at Rendezvous Hotel, another palate outlet. Balzac was located at the hotel lobby level 1. it had a pleasant indoor alfresco area.  i did not bring my camera & the setting was a bit dark for my poor photography & dying Samsung S2, so photo quality was bad. 🙂

bread basket

bread basket

we had a bread basket. so-so.

lobster bisque (S$16)

lobster bisque (S$16)

we ordered a lobster bisque to share. it had the usual intense shellfish flavour (good enough) & was nicely “foamed” too..though for me lobster bisque must come with some lobster chunks (this one didn’t!). 🙂

escargot (S$14)

escargot (S$14)

the escargot was entirely forgettable. so far the best escargot i had was still the one at Dozo which had 3 cheese gratin version matched with a single herb garlic version. 🙂

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we ordered also the cold meat platter. this came with 2 salami cut, parma ham, duck rillette & baguette. it was very good & quite large for 2pax. 🙂

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for the mains we ordered a beef tartar (there was no usual appetizer portion). this was a bit different from the usual chopped version but a bit chunky streaks of tenderloin with the usual onions & mustards w/o anchovies. it was good! 🙂

we also had ribeye steak. the 200g steak looked aged & was very flavourful better than what i do at home & worth every cent, 🙂 the very slim fries were ok but a bit salty.

in all we paid S$70nett after 50% palate discounts for 2pax, excluding wine. the food was not overwhelming but good enough for the discounted price. will be back. 🙂

c.h.e.f andy

Fun Relaxed Dinner @ Bistroquet Pizza & Grill on 25Apr2013

capresse (mozarella with rockets & tomatoes)

caprese (mozzarella with rockets & tomatoes) – S$12

today our monthly dining quartet discovery took us to bistroquet pizza & grill at ARC (Alexandra Retail Centre) @ PSA Building. the host for the evening bought 9 voucherlicious vouchers of S$270 worth for S$135 & we were especially keen to try out the 400g porterhouse steak (which looked very alluring on bistroquet’s Facebook photo). 🙂

the place had the relaxed rustic ambience for a great chillax & drinking joint (though it was not drawing the crowd even with voucher promotion as we stayed till 9pm closing time and traffic was quite light). we were liking it already, though still suspect about the standard of food. 1 of our dear friend had kind of “forgotten” (we guessed correctly huh 🙂 ) & was about settling down to watch TV serial with his mum while our other quartet member was frantically SMS-ing, whatsapp-ing & calling him. 🙂 anyway we ordered a caprese (read ca-pri-seh) salad & a funghi pizza to start. the caprese was the usual mozzarella with rockets & tomatoes, light, good actually, and enjoyable.

thin crust funghi pizza

12″ thin crust funghi pizza – S$18

the large (12″) thin crust funghi pizza was good too (they served a white pizza here but we were the old-fashioned lot who loved tomato sauces on our pizza). our friend was not much into cheese but ok with light mozzarella & the young chef (looked like no more than 28) was most obliging to our request to warm up the quarter pizza we kept for the friend. 🙂

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baby back ribs – full rack S$28

we ordered a full rack S$28 baby back ribs (1/2 rack S$18) to share, and it was good!  fork tender and tasty, well marinated, though some of us would have preferred to have the sauce served separate. and 1 friend liked the purple cabbage with mayo which was too sweet for me

400g porterhouse steak

400g porterhouse steak – S$36

next was the 400g porterhouse – the reason we came for specifically and got 1 of us into the highs. 🙂 however it seemed that the office lunch crowd had taken off most of the porterhouse steaks & we were left with 3 porterhouse to share. we had 2 medium rare and 1 medium, served with beef sauce and the chef brought us some chimichurri sauce (taste like pesto sauce) which went well with the steak. 🙂 it turned out that while the taste was ok the meat was a bit tough on the sirloin side to be considered a good steak. The small tenderloin cut in the photo (what I usually thought of as a tender & tasteless cut) turned out to be quite a world of difference –  tender & nice. also of the 3 only 1 had the T so we were guessing the other 2 pieces were all sirloin or new york strip & no tenderloin..haha. 🙂

we asked the chef later & he admitted that the ribeye would have been more tender. well we would have to do that another time. I wouldn’t mind coming back.. in fact I bought another 5 vouchers (S$150 worth) for S$75 afterwards. 🙂

chocolate lava cake with vanilla ice cream

chocolate lava cake with vanilla ice cream – S$8

I am not much of a dessert person and we did not expect much really but since we had the coupon, we ordered a chocolate lava cake and a calzone (a turnover which can be sweet or savoury..in fact they serve a foie gras calzone here as a main course item). As it turned out the lava cake was quite outstanding, and the hardened crust containing the chocolate lava was very good in texture & taste & different from lava cakes in other places. the caramelized walnut with ice cream was a good pairing too.

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calzone – S$8

& the calzone was so pretty. the dough texture was really good too, crispy on the outside not fluffy but a bit like a pizza dough. 🙂 according to the expert among us,  since no one else was in a position to dispute with her “calzone made of the same pizza dough, filled with choc, hazel nuts, pistachio, etc”.

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somehow the young chef took a liking for us, and he showered us with 2 more desserts FREE – a panna cotta which was forgettable and a tiramisu, which was again quite pretty in presentation & tasted quite good albeit not enough liquor for some of us. very good indeed & far above our expectations for dessert in a drinking joint kind of place. 🙂

we paid in total S$124 (7 vouchers=S$105 +S$19cash), and that included 2 cappuccinos + 4 beers on 1 for 1 happy hour promotion. 🙂

c.h.e.f andy

Tagliata di Manzo (Italian Sliced Beef) – Gordon Ramsay’s Pan Grill Method

tagliata di manzo

tagliata di manzo (added on 7.11.2014)

I rarely order steak when I dine out these days (unless it is at some famous grill restaurant or fine dining) as I can buy very good meats at a meat grocer (eg mmmm) & cook them at home easily myself! It seems like steak is the easiest thing to cook when you have a good piece of meat & I sometimes wonder how many restaurants can do it so bad – mostly because done at the wrong temperature!

There seems to be very many approaches to cooking steak. For now, I find the GR (Gordon Ramsay) method of a chargrilled steak suits me fine (Heston Blumenthal use a very different method of flipping the meat every 15 seconds! ).

tagliata di manzo (USA grain fed ribeye & australian wagyu MBS 4/5)

tagliata di manzo (USA grain fed ribeye & australian wagyu MBS 4/5)

pan-fried wagyu marbling score 6/7

pan-fried wagyu marbling score 6/7

Basically you need to have the meat at room temperature (means you take it out of the fridge for at least 1/2hr), lightly season with sea salt & coarse black pepper, grease a very hot skillet (I use the fat cut from the striploin or ribeye to grease the pan), and place the steaks on the the skillet w/o crowding, turn once, lightly touch the meat to feel for done-ness, add a small blob of butter to give it a nut brown finish, base the sauce over & let the steak soak in the flavour. You then turn off the fire & lift the steak off the pan to rest on a serving board & rest for 5minutes or longer to let the meat relax & redistribute the juices (please do see Heston Blumenthal’s very entertaining video here on the human press..lol.,to understand why). 🙂

panfried ribeye using GR (Gordon Ramsay) method

panfried ribeye using GR (Gordon Ramsay) method

The ribeye in the top picture (& in the plated tagliata di manzo below) has been aged in the fridge for 48hrs. Aging is supposed to intensify the flavour & also tenderise the steak. There is a lot of literature on this. For now I do not find significant difference whether the meat is aged for 48hrs or not, and I am happy just having the steak w/o aging. My views may change later though if I know more!

tagliata di manzo

tagliata di manzo (added on 7.11.2014)

tagliata di manzo

tagliata di manzo (added on 7.11.2014)

For the tagliata (Italian sliced beef), we just need to plate it nicely with rockets & 1/2 cherry tomatoes lightly tossed with sea salt, extra virgin olive oil & balsamic vinegar on a serving board, like so below.

c.h.e.f andy