The Viking Griddles – a Two Course Feast!

What do you do, if you’re an aspiring food blogger/writer/gastronomic whizz, and it’s your wife’s birthday, and you don’t have the necessary wodge to take her to one of London’s finest eateries?  Well, you say to her:

“Darling!  Light that is my life! As we celebrate another year of your life on this Earth, what can I cook for you for a birthday feast?”

Yes, she might question why you have to bring drama in to everything, and yes, she will probably think that you’re just looking for something to cook so you can write about it (and she’d be right, honestly).  This is probably why my wife looked at me with what we call an ‘Ancelotti Eyebrow’ and said “I’d like a steak, please.”

And lo, so it came to pass, that this week I will be writing about steak.  A good, British steaky steak from a big arsed hairy cow.  But of course, this was a birthday feast, and I’ve written about steak before – I’m sure we all remember eating Kanga and Roo from the Winnie the Pooh books, and Piglet has been done too.  I’ve only to work through Rabbit, Donkey, Owl, Heffalump, Robin and Bear and then I can cast the memory of those god-awful saccharine Disney cartoons far from my mind.  But I digress.  So this time I’ll be doing two courses for you to try out.  Yes, two!  That’s two for the price of one, and as you pay nothing to read my witterings, you’re in profit!

So.  For starters, I offer you Danish Stuffed Mushrooms.  You will need, as usual, STUFF:

- Large mushrooms, one a person

- A lump of Danish Blue.  You could use Stilton, I suppose, if you are a pervert

- Breadcrumbs (I made mine out of day old French bread, but you can buy little packets of breadcrumbs)

- 3 Shallots, chopped

- Chopped parsley

- Chopped coriander

- Salt and Pepper

- Salad

The potatoes and broccoli are for later on, I really
didn't think that photo through...

Firstly, sweat down your chopped shallots in a little olive oil...

In a food processor, whizz down your old bread to a coarse crumb.  If you've brought pre-made crumbs, skip to the next step.  Which is add the cheese, shallots, coriander, parsley, salt and pepper to the crumbs and combine together.  This should form a sort of doughy paste – not too dry, but not too wet, either.  You can combine with a food processor if you want – sadly, mine gave out after having struggled with the bread – but you can also do as I did and combine together with your hands.  You’ll have stinky cheese fingers, but that’s all part of the drama.

Now, remove the stalks from your mushrooms, rub the dome of it with a little olive oil, and then stuff the mushroom cavity with your cheese mixture.

Whack it in an oven that has been preheated to Gas Mark 3/160 C, and cook for half an hour.  Serve on a bed of rocket salad.

It might not be much to look at, but the combination of bready crunch, the herb blast from the parsely and coriander and the melty, gooey cheesiness that runs through it all is absolutely, completely and totally divine.

And now, on to the main course!  Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Griddled Rib-Eye Steak with Dauphinoise Potatoes and Broccoli for a bit of Green.

You will need some STUFF, and woe betide you if you don’t have it:

- A rib-eye steak per person

- Potatoes, peeled and sliced

- 500ml of double cream

- Garlic cloves, grated

- Salt

- Pepper

Steak, as you may have gathered by now, is one of my favourite things.  But you can make it in to something quite special by substituting chips for posh-o dauphinoise potatoes.  They are creamy, garlicky and uncommonly good – and, as it turns out, stupidly easy to make.

Begin by prepping your potatoes.  You don’t need as many as you think, for two portions I peeled three medium sized potatoes.  Peel, and then use a mandoline or the big side of a cheese grater to slice them in to thin, crisp sized slices:

Yeah, it looks friendly enough, but it'll have
your fingers off in an instant...

Leave in a bowl and once you’re done slicing, rinse to remove all of the starch.  Pat dry, and then season with salt and pepper.  Now add the garlic, as many cloves as fits your taste – I used three, but reckon I could have got away with a bit more.  Top and tail each clove, but don’t bother peeling it.  Just run it straight through a grater – amazingly, the skin doesn't go through but all of the flesh of the clove does.  Add that in to your potatoes as well.

Now, pour in the cream and gently stir the whole mixture around, making sure that everything is covered in a nice blanket of garlic cream.

Then, layer your potato in to a dish.  Here, I have been quite cheffy and used small ramekins to make individual portions, but you could use a big gratin dish, something like that, for big giant portions of heaven.

Once you’re done, press down the mix with the back of a spoon and pour over any more cream as you see fit.  Then this goes in to the oven for 45 minutes to an hour at Gas Mark 3/160 C.

Now get your steaks out of the fridge and leave them for half an hour to come up to room temperature.  At this point, rub a small amount of oil in to each side of the steak – do not put oil in the pan.  Season well with pepper and, when you’re ready to cook, get the pan so hot it shimmers.  Drop the steaks in the pan and revel in the loud sizzle they make.

Cook on a high heat for one minute on either side, then turn the hob down to a medium heat and cook for a further 2 minutes on each side for a medium steak.  Rest for five minutes, and you’re good to go. (Obviously, you’ll need to time this so this matches with when your dauphinoise come out of the oven.)

In the meantime, you will have simmered some heads of broccoli for about 10 minutes – this is so they keep their greenness and their crunch (as well as all that irony goodness inside).  Arrange this on to a warm plate next to a hunk of steak.

If you’ve cooked your potatoes in ramkeins like me, you may want to turn them out and present them on the plate as a little pile of creamy potato.  Be really careful when doing this as the ramekins will be very hot.  Lay something flat (like a plastic lid) over the top of the ramekin, and turn it upside down.  Give it a gentle shake and lift it away – you’ll have a perfect little tower of dauphinoise.  To serve, gently lay another small, flat surface on top, and flip so that the browned side is facing upwards.  Slide on to a plate and voila!  Chef-like results in the home.

Eat.  Enjoy.  Celebrate.  That’s what this sort of food should inspire – if you make an effort beyond going down to a local restaurant for somebody’s birthday, if you give them the gift of food that is made with love and care, then they will really appreciate it.

Still, I’d get them a present too, just to be on the safe side.

And there we are again, at the end of another wee blogette.  Next week, I’ll be departing from Food Viking tradition, and posting a review of a restaurant I’m going to be eating in this weekend – I am going to be far from my own kitchen and I steadfastly refuse to cook while I’m on my mini holiday.  However, if this causes outcry, I’m sure I can do another mini-blog at some point in the week too.

I hope, as ever, that you enjoy this blog and if you do – tell your friends!  Everybody needs a Viking in their lives!

Take care now,

Viking