But first, our starter ...
I have egg whites surplus to requirement from something I'll be doing as part of our main, so I based a fun entrée around gently fried egg whites covered with pickled herring, pickled beetroot, tomato, leaves, cottage cheese and Yorkshire mayonnaise, a yellow mayo from rapeseed, white wine vinegar, egg yolk and mustard; so, more egg white.
... and the main:
Bullet steak, cooked black and blue, oyster mushrooms, asparagus, peas, samphire, potato and beetroot over mushroom velouté with leaves, crowned with a poached egg yolk.
Putting this together is simply a case of having everything reading up front and assembling onto warm plates while the steak flashes in a pan.
Velouté
Velouté is simply a sauce made from stock and thickened with a roux. As ancestral eaters, we don't eat wheat flour and sadly, starch flours can become unappealing when heavily thickened. I'm going to use a double cream reduction to thicken my stock sauce.
Dice up some mushrooms, oyster in my case, shredded leek, a dash of white pepper and cook through in butter in a skillet.
Add some beef stock, blend well, passing through a sieve back into the skillet to reduce. Stir in some cream, or soured cream as I did, and reduce further.
Set aside just to warm through at the end.
Veggies
Boil your beetroots and cut up. Set aside.
Soften the oyster mushrooms in butter, in a skillet. We'll be adding the other veggies in at the end to warm through, so pick a skillet of sufficient size.
Boil your potatoes. Drain and set aside.
Par boil the asparagus and peas, immersing the samphire in at the very end. Drain and add to the skillet with your oyster mushrooms. Add the potatoes in.
Set the skillet aside.
Leaves
Have your leaves ready to scatter over.
I also shredded some radicchio to provide a bitter base over the creamy velouté.
Egg Yolk
We'll be crowning this dish with a poached egg yolk, so have a yolk per person ready and waiting in a ramekin and pan of boiled water just simmering.
Steak
When you're ready to eat, pre-heat a skillet while you just warm through the veggies and sauce, flash fry the steak while you assemble the dish ...
Assemblage
Take a plate and make a slide of velouté down the centre over which shredded radicchio is scattered.
Arrange a few potatoes and beetroots to form the structure of the dish.
Retrieve the steaks, rest very briefly and cut through into a number of pieces showing off the rare centre. Mingle in and amongst the roots.
Immerse the egg yolks into the pan of water - you want 60 seconds. No more ... no less.
Arrange the asparagus, samphire and peas in and amongst the meat and roots.
Retrieve the egg, gently, and rest on some kitchen paper to dry off.
Scatter some leaves over, black pepper and a little interesting salt - I used Icelandic Ash Salt.
Crown with the egg yolk.
Voilà! Presenting ... Bullet Steak Supreme.
Yes, this episode of 'Living in the Ice Age' was inspired by watching Master Chef at dinner time. Who needs a Michelin Star, eh?
