Food in Provence (and elsewhere)

But before any interesting(?) pictures of that, I had to butcher down a flank of beef after I’d made the détrempe and bashed 450g of butter to a finger-height rectangle. So this…

… had to become this…

At this stage, Garry (he of the butchery photo on Friday) wandered past and commented favourably on the work!

All this this was to prepare spiced beef. Apparently Cork used to export preserved meats around the world so spiced beef is a local specialty. You can see the spice mix under the beef; I covered the strips with more, will have to turn them tomorrow evening and then cook them on Thursday.

So. to the puff pastry where I seem to have managed OK. The first rolling out after enclosing the butter in the pastry was a bit difficult and I could see that the butter wasn’t entirely in a continuous piece but none broke through the détrempe and the second and third double rolls were easier.

Along the way I also made Béarnaise sauce to go with the steaks we were grilling. Steaks cut from the sirloin of the cow slaughtered before we arrived (and from which the flank bit I had to deal with had been trimmed.)

One neat trick I have learnt at the school is to leave meat to rest on an upside-down small plate in a larger one. That way the meat isn’t sitting in any juices—and any that do run out are easily collected in the large plate.

As I’d been doing the spiced beef, I had no chips or other accompaniment to my steak but my cooking and presentation both passed muster.