Cape Town - Christmas has become synonymous with Le Creuset. Well, it has for me, I can’t speak for you. I do have to drop the odd hint or reminder. I may stand admiringly before my Le Creuset ramekins and sigh with contentment, making sure those who have my best Christmas interests at heart are watching.
“Ah, where would I be without my Le Creuset tagine, the one with the Champagne white lid,” I may ask in my best Hyacinth Bucket – sorry, Bouquet – voice, as if planning one of my famous candlelight dinner parties where only the finest bone china would do and for which, naturally, nanna’s silver candelabra would grace the table.
Or I may try another, more cunning, tactic. I may get out the old rustic skillet, with its ancient ridged base and its rope handle, which I admire greatly but which admiration does not preclude its owner from coveting a Le Creuset grill pan, which would serve a similar function but would be, well, Le Creuset. And if you think, as well you might, that somehow all of this suggests that I might be in the pay of the French manufacturer of these sought-after items of culinary indulgence, well, you would not be thinking clearly, would you?
Because if that were the case, I wouldn’t have to drop heavy hints a few weeks before Christmas and wait an entire year before getting another bloody one, would I?
As it happened, it was the grillpan, or skillet if you prefer, that I had dropped heavy hints about late last year, and duly, as if Santa had actually heard my Christmas list, there it was under the Christmas tree – unlike when I was a little boy and somehow he heard “toy train” as “Tiddlywinks set”. All a little boy needs at Christmas time is a hard-of-hearing old git in a Santa suit.
But Santa – or someone – was listening this time, and there beneath the tree, cunningly disguised as a large square thing, was the requisite skillet while the ancient one screamed the strangled scream of the spurned somewhere in a forgotten kitchen cupboard.
One can only hope there is no Toy Story of kitchen implements and a spurned skillet with a Get Chucky habit.
Old or new, a skillet is a great thing to have if you want to give a steak or piece of fish a bit of a drumroll on the plate. The steak comes out looking like restaurant quality.
Key to cooking a steak or fish fillet properly in a grill pan is to have faith. It will stick to the bottom at first, and that is not a problem. But if you lift it too soon, the meat will tear. I am the biggest culprit here, always overeager to lift it – potentially too soon – at the risk of damaging it.
The item will, after time, release itself from the bottom of the pan and only then should it be turned. As for how long to cook on the other side, less is safer than more, if you don’t want to risk overcooking, because most of the cooking has been done on the first side.
As for fish, don’t try hake unless you absolutely know what you’re dong, the fillet has been expertly filleted, and it hasn’t ever been frozen. Fresh hake is a bitch to cook and frankly, it’s best to batter and deep-fry it.
If you habitually fry hake fillets successfully without them breaking up, gimme the recipe, please. Better though would be tuna, or that beautiful firm fish, dorado. I used to foolishly think I could get away with frying fish without first coating it in seasoned flour, but trust me, it won’t work.
Whether cooking a steak or that lovely piece of dorado, a herb butter is a lovely way to finish it off. They’re easy to make, and they freeze until shortly before you need it.
With fresh thyme looking good in the back garden at the moment, I made a thyme garlic butter to grace thick-cut sirloin steaks cooked in the gift that Santa got right.
The butter should be at room temperature and, if you like, you can double or triple this recipe to make as much as you like, if you’re likely to use it frequently.
Thyme garlic butter
100g butter
Handful of thyme sprigs, the leaves stripped from their stems
4 to 6 cloves garlic, very finely chopped
Drizzle of lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste
Clingfilm
Beat the softened butter in a bowl, and blend the thyme sprigs (which you need to pick from the stems) and finely chopped garlic in a blender with 2 Tbs or so of the beaten butter.
Add the blitzed herb butter back to the butter in the bowl, combine thoroughly, and beat in a squeeze of lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Unwrap a piece of clingfilm on a board and place the thyme butter in the centre. Roll up, then twirl the ends to make a roll. Freeze until needed, removing from the freezer an hour or two before you need it, depending on the room temperature. Slice neat rounds of the thyme butter and place on top of the steaks before serving.
Oh, and Christmas is only 11 months away. Just saying. - Weekend Argus