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Camden food and drink | review | Claire Latimer's recipe for peppered steak
Clare Latimer says there’s no harm in occasionally giving in to our cravings
I WAS shocked to read that the Camden Sustainability Task Force is considering a recommendation to reduce the amount of meat and dairy available on sites controlled by Camden Council (Letters, April 10).
By all means try to keep Camden greener but don’t try to change the lay of the countryside. For example, a livestock farmer in Cornwall can’t use his land for anything except grazing animals or growing animal feed.
But more important is that “the green and pleasant land” comes from animal farming and this is the only way that birds, bees and butterflies will be able to exist.
Do we want all our beautiful countryside to have tractors chucking out diesel and making arable planes throughout the land? I am all for the task force helping green matters in Camden but please leave the countryside to those who know.
Peppered steak
My mum, who is now 90, has a yearning to eat red meat, very dark chocolate, a small whisky and a glass of red wine every day along with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables. Her “gut reaction” has made her look better than she has looked in years. I believe in giving what your own body yearns for, in moderation.
Ingredients
Serves 2
1 teasp whole black pepper corns
2 sirloin or fillet steaks 200g each
1 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, peeled and chopped
1 tbsp brandy
Splash red wine
Salt.
Method
Start by crushing the peppercorns very coarsely with a pestle and mortar (or use the back of a tablespoon and crush them in a bowl).
Now take a shallow dish, large enough to hold two steaks comfortably side by side.
Pour the olive oil mixed with the clove of crushed garlic into a large, shallow dish and coat each steak evenly on both sides with the crushed peppercorns. Place the steaks in the dish and then turn over so each side is well covered with the oil, garlic and oil mixture. Cover and leave them aside for several hours, turning them over once.
When you are ready to eat the steaks, heat a heavy-based frying pan to a very hot heat. Put each steak straight into the pan and keeping the heat high, and turn them once after one minute.
Then lower the heat and cook them how you like. Either “blue”, which means only a flash in the pan to produce a very rare steak; for medium rare give them three more minutes, and for well done, four more minutes.
One minute before the end of your chosen time, pour in the brandy and then the wine. Let it bubble and reduce down to about one-third of its original volume and scrape up all the brown gooey bits from the pan. Grind over some salt and serve the steaks with new potatoes and perhaps some fresh spinach.
Pour the sauce over the steaks.
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