FAQ from food festival visitors: How to cook great steak?

While working for www.yourperfectnightin.co.uk on their stand at this summer's Shrewsbury Food Festival and Shrewsbury Flower Show, a recurring question from knowledgeable visitors was "what's the best way to cook steak?" Here is my personal view and method:
1) Buy great steak. Sirloin or ribeye. Predominantly forage-fed. From proper butcher or farm shop.
2) Let steak warm up to room temperature for an hour or two before cooking.
3) Dry the steaks with kitchen roll, coat both sides in small amount vegetable oil (NOT olive...burns too easily; corn or rapeseed or sunflower all OK).
4) Season one side generously with salt and ground black pepper.
5) Get heavy frying pan or griddle VERY hot, without oil. Keep it very hot until end of step 7.
6) Place steak, seasoned side down, onto hot surface. Start 3-minute timer. DON'T move steak around pan. Do apply gentle downward pressure on fat spots/strips for good contact with intense heat.
7) Season uncooked side, then turn. Start 1-minute timer. DON'T move steak around pan. Do apply gentle downward pressure on fat spots/strips for good contact with intense heat.
8) Take steaks off heat and wrap all together in cooking foil, shiny side inwards, then place on warm plate and cover with two tea towels to keep warm. Start 10-minute timer.
9) Refill wine glass. Fuss with chips or new spuds, veg or salad, table setting, etc. DON'T get impatient. Put plates to warm, put everything except steaks on dining table for help-yourself service, then call your guest(s) to the table (unless they're there already from starters).
10) When timer goes off, unwrap steaks taking care not to lose/spill the meat juices. Move steaks to clean cutting board, then drain meat juices into a warm bowl.
11) Cut steaks on a 45-degree angle from vertical into strips 1.0 to 1.5cm wide. Arrange artistically on a large warm plate or metal platter.
12) Take platter and meat juices to table and bask in warm applause.
13) Ask guests to help themselves, allowing self-selection of rare or medium pieces according to personal preference. Assertive chairmanship by host/cook helps make sure everyone gets their preference.
14) If anyone asks for some pieces to be cooked a bit more, throw them out of the house and never speak to them again...ever.
15) Enjoy.
16) PS (i) With 8oz steaks, the timings above should produce rare to medium-rare sirloin and medium ribeye. Because of ribeye'e delicious fat content, it is best cooked medium - any less and you risk uncooked fat on your plate. (ii) Please DON'T bother with a sauce. If you've got step 1 right, it won't be necessary. Let great steak speak for itself, naked. (iii) With generous provision of spuds and veg/salad, three 8oz steaks will feed four people easily.
Disclaimer: This is my method and there may be others, just as good or possibly better. Your improvement tips are most welcome.

Very poor sirloin steak - feedback part 1

Dear [name of establishment...may be revealed later if there's either a meritworthy or non response]

 

On Sunday 18th August, I was one of a party of six adults and one toddler, booked under my daughter’s name Claire I think, who enjoyed a meal there in the late afternoon. I say ‘enjoyed’ with no intention of irony. The setting was great; the occasion, relaxed; and the food, good...in all but one respect. Before I describe this, please be assured that I’m not looking for any personal gain here, except the satisfaction of letting you know something was not right, then you can endeavour to prevent it from happening again.

 

My main course choice was sirloin steak, which the gentleman serving us said was from cattle of the Hereford breed, reared locally. It was more than disappointing and I am more than concerned about the detrimental impact that serving such poor specimens surely has on the Great British Public’s view of ordering steak when eating out. My specimen was poor in two important respects: (1) It was terribly badly cooked. I’d ordered medium rare, which indeed it was. But (i) the steak offered no evidence that it had been seasoned before cooking; and (ii) the fat strip was pale, cool and more or less raw. (2) Before it got near the grill, the steak itself should have been rejected by your chef and returned to your supplier on account of a thick strip of gristle between muscle and fat, running the entire length of the steak. If your kitchen team looks at what’s left on plates when they return to the kitchen, the evidence was plain to see. What really narks me is that both these factors are avoidable.

 

“Why didn’t you raise this at the time?”, you may be wondering. Because of bitter experience that giving such real time feedback in the past has ALWAYS spoiled the occasion, no matter how diplomatic I have been in offering the feedback and no matter how well handled it’s been by the establishment. As I said up top, we all enjoyed the meal very much. For my part, your calamari starter was good and chocolate dessert, divine. Even now, I purposely haven’t shared my dissatisfaction about the sirloin with any of the party.

 

Part of my reason for taking this seriously is that I have an interest in the good name of native breed British beef, and steak in particular, in my work helping to promote a future rival to you, www.yourperfectnightin.co.uk. Of course, this is not a competitor in the conventional sense; but it does offer an ‘eat in rather than eat out’ proposition. Perfect Night In steaks are from pasture-reared Aberdeen Angus-cross cattle, and if they ever send out a steak with gristle like the one you served to me, I’ll be mortified. Also, in addition to being an eager home cook of limited skill, I have worked 10-15 hours a week in a hobby-job (in addition to full-time self-employment) for a while as a commis chef in one of the best eating houses in the Shrewsbury area. It’s like getting paid to attend cookery school, and if I ever serve up a steak with gristle, or as poorly cooked as the one you served to me, I’ll be mortified.

 

I hope you detect that my intentions are genuine. It so happens that www.yourperfectnightin.co.uk is based on a small farm in north Gloucestershire, which I visit regularly to plan my work with the owners.If you’re interested, I would be delighted to drop in on you at a convenient time with a couple of their Angus sirloins for you to taste, not because I want you to buy from them, but because I’d like to chew the fat with you about steak and British beef, dining out and dining in, etc.

 

With best wishes.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Phil Christopher

Letters To My Children

New blog, 'Letters To My Children', posted at http://letters2mykidz.blogspot.co.uk/.

Keeping your dragons on side

...with thanks to my source of this wisdom, David Bolton (www.boltonpartners.co.uk), and our sponsor Challenger Tractors UK (part of AGCO).

“What does your business model look like?,” asks farm business consultant David Bolton. “It's a question that anyone seeking funding for a new business today is likely to be asked, and one worth asking yourself from time to time.”

Just for a moment, he suggests imagining that you were starting a farming business now, and what you might say in your Dragon's Den pitch: 'We spend lots of money on things to spread on the soil, which might not grow or could get washed down the ditch; or we spend lots of money on farm animals that might die. Then we do as much as humanly possible to prevent these things from happening and to encourage germination, healthy growth and fruition.

'As well as hard work, we keep our fingers crossed for a long time – up to a year with crops, perhaps longer with many livestock – before harvesting a crop or cashing in a meat animal or producing milk, which we may well sell for a spot price that wasn't fixed or perhaps even known at the time we bought the inputs.'

Convinced? Mr Bolton hopes so, because that's what your business owner(s) needs to be when they wake up every morning. “Of course, farmers reading this who are also the business owner or a shareholder/partner have a place on either side of Dragons' Den's gladiatorial arena,” he says. “On the one hand as farm manager, you want your dragons to retain their investment for another day/week/month/year, while you continue striving to generate a healthy return for them. On the other as one of those dragons yourself, you deserve reassurance that your hard-earned wealth is invested wisely and earning a healthy return.

“If over breakfast one day you decided your shares in Acme Biotech plc weren't earning their keep, you could instruct your broker to sell that very day. Even though liquidating your holding in a farm business can't quite be done with a single phone call, the principle holds good: Every morning, the owners of your business decide – albeit subconsciously and unintentionally – either to buy into it for another day or sell out.”

Assuming they decide to buy rather than sell each morning, Mr Bolton suggests considering why. Is it out of habit, obligation, apathy, indolence, or being trapped? Or is it down to commitment, conviction, philanthropy, personal drive or agrarian enthusiasm? In other words, are your owners (and you) hostages or investors?

Now would be a good time to identify this, he says, because many farming businesses including very successful ones face significant challenges over the next two to three years, which a well thought through business model can help overcome.

In the here and now for example, crop gross margins face ongoing pressure due to below average 2012 yields, poor or non-establishment of crops last autumn, slug damage, leaked soil nutrients, rising input costs, and soil structure problems. Mr Bolton believes this latter factor in particular will take more than one crop year to overcome. So despite current grain prices, he foresees the possibility of tight cash flow situations for many arable businesses and urges action now to predict these and line up additional working capital at a competitive cost for when it's needed.

“Even with a strong balance sheet, planning ahead can make the difference in borrowing cost between 2% over base and 29% APR from The Bank of Last Minute,” he suggests. “When doing your cash flow forecast, run it to at least the end of 2014 or even to harvest 2015, then discuss the situation now with your dragons and bank manager.”

A tough-love letter to UK dairy farmers and their representatives

Part one of your problem in pursuing a fair milk price is illustrated on the soft drink shelves at your nearest supermarket. At mine, you can get two litres of Co-op rola-cola for 29p…or 1.5 litres Coca-Cola for £1.71. That’s a 7.86-fold (i.e. 786%) difference in the price per litre. In the same store for four pints of milk, the price of Cravendale at £1.99 is 45% higher than Co-op own brand’s £1.37. Clearly, this suggests a relationship between brand and pricing, and brings economics into play, particularly the law of supply and demand.

When the Co-op wants rola-cola, it has several or perhaps many potential suppliers, all of whom are more or less equally capable of assembling “carbonated water, malted barley extract, natural flavouring, phosphoric acid, sweeteners (Acesulfame K, sucralose), preservative (potassium sorbate)” and decanting it into plain, generic plastic receptacles. So plentiful supplies from an ample choice of manufacturers who can be played off against each other offers the buyer their dream dog-eat-dog scenario…which means they can sell two litres of rola-cola for 29p and still make a profit.

In contrast, there is only one supplier in the world who can combine “carbonated water, sugar, colour (caramel E150d), phosphoric acid, natural flavourings including caffeine”, then place it in an iconic bottle (albeit plastic but still a gorgeous piece of design) with distinctive red and white labelling, and stronger emotional bonds with consumers than between many courting couples. So chances are this manufacturer is making a rather bigger margin than the poor retailer from the £1.71 for 1.5 litres selling price.

Obviously, this situation has not arisen by chance. It comes about as a result of a multi-million pound/dollar, multi-national and multi-decade investment in the Coca-Cola brand. On a smaller but still significant scale, the Cravendale owner’s investment in that brand is what earns them the 45% higher selling price currently evident at my local Co-op.

Part two is human nature, in particular the innate drive to exploit power to one’s own advantage. To drive down feeds costs, some farmers join buying groups. In the auction ring, how many farmers give away how keen they are by bidding enthusiastically? When buying fertiliser, are you happy to pay more than the going rate to ease a merchant’s difficulties with narrow margins?

All today’s large farm businesses were once small ones. Along the way, the strong used their power to exploit opportunities and expand. The same goes for shops. Right now, the biggest shops clearly have rather more power than even the very biggest farms.

Part three is a curious business anomaly. A mixed farm producing cereals as well as milk will enter into grain sale contracts for a defined tonnage, specification and price. Yet the same farm agrees to sell milk under a contract that specifies neither volume nor price, and with a long notice period.

Clearly, finding a solution is a huge challenge for the farming industry. In addition to milk, this scenario also applies in eggs, pig meat, vegetables and salads. When imported products are readily available, things get even more difficult because supermarkets as just as likely to buy competitively priced imports as we all are individually with cars or tractors, clothes or shoes. So it can be argued that the liquid milk sector at least has the advantage of being ring-fenced to the UK.

For supermarkets, the need for customers to buy fresh milk every few days is a powerful vector in persuading shoppers to return more frequently that they otherwise would. That's why milk is discounted, not because supermarkets don't value it. On the contrary, their need for fresh milk is fundamental to their business model, and if it's unbranded or their own brand so much the better because that allows them to play one eager (i.e. desperate) supplier off against another. But if the availability of unbranded milk was restricted, or ideally eliminated, they'd have no choice but stock branded milks, among which the strong brands (like Cravendale milk and Muller yogurts already, for example) would earn the best prices for their suppliers.

Otherwise, most liquid milk, with the notable and minority exceptions of innovative farmers' brands like Acorn, Bowland Fresh and Jess's (see back copies of Farmers Guardian for reports on all three), continues to be anonymous generic white stuff in plastic cartons, sold at give-away prices by retailers as an important part, to them, of their customer retention strategies.

Farmers wanting to be play-makers not pawns have to act accordingly and not leave action to others. For example, those yet to join Farmers For Action, already better off as a result of FFA’s activism getting the August price cuts cancelled, could start by signing up. Every dairy farmer without exception should contact their farming union and find out what help they’re offering in getting more balanced supply contracts in place between producers and processors.

Then to support the SOS DAIRY campaign's phase two, what if all dairy farmers were to de-tune cow diets so that yields fell by two to three litres per cow per day? With feed prices where they are, immediate cost savings could go some way towards cancelling out foregone milk income. As long as de-tuning is done advisedly, with forage making up any potential feed intake shortfall, it could be done without detriment to cow health or fertility.

Empty shelves where milk should be is a spectre that should worry even the most hard-nosed milk buyer and their retailer customers. Three litres a day less milk from a million cows would be noticed very quickly in the supply chain. Together with the ongoing publicity being created by the industry, supply chain jitters could help strengthen the dairy farming coalition's negotiating position in seeking fairer contract terms and pricing mechanisms, and lasting stability for the long term.

-ends-

Making a loss? Reducing production is an option

PS to yesterday's post:
For any business producing anything at a loss, one option with immediate benefits is to produce less and reduce those losses.

How to make milk buyers & retailers sweat

Empty shelves where milk should be is a spectre that will worry even the most hard-nosed milk buyer and their retailer customers. So I wonder how long it would take them to notice that a million cows were each giving two to three litres a day less than usual?

If all dairy farmers could and would de-tune cow diets slightly to create this effect, cost savings at current high feed prices could go a long way towards making up for lost milk income. As long as it's done advisedly, with forage making up any potential feed intake shortfall, I believe this could also be done without detriment to cow health or fertility.

 

Together with the amazing publicity created be by the industry, this tactic could help strengthen the negotiating position of dairy farmers' representative in seeking fairer contract terms and pricing mechanisms, without the potentially damaging impact on public opinion of wastefully pouring milk into slurry pits.