Week 11: Flash-Fried Steak with White Bean Mash

The book: Nigella Express 

The recipe: p140, "Flash-Fried Steak with White Bean Mash" 

With 22 books on the shelf and 52 weeks to fill, it was only a matter of time before we reached our first repeat offender. Nigella Express takes the honours, having previously supplied us with a nice but insubstantial salad on a wintry afternoon when something warm and filling was called for.

The latest random.org offering seems more promising in that respect, and the "Express" part of the book's name is certainly front and centre here - Nigella vows "the perfect almost-instant dinner ... under five minutes ... from start to finish".

I never do anything involving steak at home because it's pretty expensive and I'm scared of fucking it up, frankly. Overcooking the veg is one thing, incinerating a £5 cut of beef is quite another. Still, Nigella's introduction waxes lyrical about recreating a more substantial version of the old-fashioned minute steak, the kind of thing that only needs to be briefly introduced to a frying pan and little more. Surely even I can't get that too badly wrong.

The prep: "Thin-cut sirloin or entrecôte steaks" are the order of the day here. Pleasingly, Lewisham Sainsbury's offers up a two-pack of "Thin-Cut Sirloin Steaks" without hesitation - it's almost as if supermarket product ranges are dictated by the whims of celebrity chefs or something.

The recipe calls for tinned "white beans" - cannellini would seem to fit the bill - and otherwise it's just standard ingredients like olive oil, garlic, a lemon. Oh, wait, and "1 sprig fresh rosemary, optional". It's a good thing it's optional, because on this particular Sunday afternoon, Sainsbury's is practically overflowing with parsley, sage and thyme but there's not a sprig of rosemary in sight.

Bugger it, I can sprinkle on some dried rosemary instead. Who's going to know?

The making: Olive oil is heated in a saucepan, then garlic, lemon zest and the non-sprig of rosemary are mixed through. I realise this isn't the kind of meal for calorie-counters, but we're trying to be good at the minute, so I decide to halve the quantity of olive oil (30ml instead of 60ml) and see how that turns out.

Next, Nigella instructs me to drain the beans and rinse them under a tap "to get rid of the gloop".

The beans are added to the hot oil and warmed through while being squished and stirred. It's a basic technique and the outcome is actively meant to constitute a "nobbly mash". 

Innuendo aside, that's about my level of food presentation at the best of times, so that's handy.

Meanwhile, more oil is heated in a large frying pan and the steaks are cooked for a minute and a half on each side before being salted "to taste" (in my case: copiously). They're removed from the pan and assembled on a plate with the beans, then the juice of the aforementioned lemon is added, combined with the "meaty oil"...

...and poured over the steaks. In the meantime, I've taken the liberty of steaming some broccoli as a second side, as much for a bit of colour as anything else.

At this point, the rosemary sprig should be gracefully placed atop the assembled food having previously been removed from the garlic oil, but I don't really miss it - this isn't an especially elegant dish, or at least it isn't when my presentation skills are involved.
 

 

The eating: Considering Nigella claims to like her meat practically dripping with blood (no I am not using that GIF again), 90 seconds on each side is a bit much for these thin cuts, if anything - it's not that they're at all overdone, but I could have done with more than just residual pinkness in the middle.

The promise of a "garlicky, lemony, ultra-fabulous, utterly addictive bean mash" is also overstating things somewhat. It's a bit dry (my fault for cutting down on the oil, I suppose) and unnervingly lumpy, and I get far more of the rosemary flavour than the garlic or the lemon - but it is a substantial and hearty accompaniment, not to mention the kind of dish that just lives for soaking up those lovely steak juices. I broadly approve, though next time I'd forego the "Express" component of the recipe somewhat and make a smaller quantity as one of several sides, as otherwise the stodge ends up being a bit overwhelming.

Still, the steak experiment is a general success and I'm now less wary of letting semi-expensive cuts of meat into my kitchen (although justifying loosening the purse-strings will remain a challenge). And I absolutely cannot fault the speed of preparation - it wasn't quite "under five minutes" as promised, but the rustic approach to mashing the beans while cooking them is a huge time-saver, and juggling the various tasks is no problem either. 

OK, the whole thing is hardly the height of complexity, but still - if random lightning were to strike twice then I'd be fine with that, and that's compliment enough.

One-word verdict: Nobbly.