Food

whats the best technique to finish off a reverse seared steak in a cast iron pan?

just cooked a banging steak but the external crust always comes out a bit anaemic and anytime i try to use oil/butter it just sets of the poxy fucking fire alarm in the hall and the butter burns itself onto the pan before I can turn the alarm off again. i just can't get the knack of it.

Smoking hot pan. Make sure the steak is dry - you want no water on the surface. No pepper either- burnt pepper flavour is meh. I use Avocado oil to keep things from sticking (higher smoke temp than butter or veg oils). Windows open.

Although if you have actual well seasoned cast iron you can use no oil.

I often cut a bit of the fat off the steak and run that around the pan and use that as the frying grease.

You only need to cook for a minute or so, if that, on either side. Some times when I flip the steak over I turn the heat off and drop a knob of butter into the pan.

I bought some avocado oil (after watching Sam the Coooking Guy bang on about it), can't say it's very nice in salads, it's got a very strong flavour for me... Didn't love it for cooking either, didn't find it to be very neutral... What am I doing wrong?

I only use it to keep things from sticking to my carbon steel - chicken, lamb and beef. I don't use much so I don't notice the flavour.

STG and his 420 snack foods are ridiculous. Love his Mexican stuff.

STG and his 420 snack foods are ridiculous. Love his Mexican stuff.

I had to unsubscribe, I cannot eat ANYTHING he makes... It was a masochistic exercise... I'll give the avocado oil another go when I'm making my homemade veggie burgers...

I season and rub the steak with oil before it goes in the oven, and sear in a really hot pan (turning often), with no extra oil at all.

Windows open, as stated above.

thanks for the tips all.

does anyone have any strong feelings on gas vs dual fuel when it comes to cookers?

we're about to move and need new white goods as we chucked our old shit in with our flat.

I have a sneaking suspicion our new place doesn't have a proper cooker switch and every double oven cooker I've looked at pulls more than the 3kw limit for a normal plug socket by quite some margin.

gas ovens kinda scare me as i'm only used to the old deathtrap style ones that never lit properly from my poverty childhood but i'm not sure if an all gas oven (or one with just an electric grill that is ok to plug in) would be just as good if not better than gas hob/electric oven?

Mee too tried it but had a v strong flavor even just for frying off onions and stuff.

Any particular reason you want a double oven? An alternative could be a single oven and a microwave with an oven for when you need the two ovens.

I've used a few gas ovens in holiday places and the like and, although they no longer seem to have singe your eyebrows lighting, they didn't seem to cook that well.

one of my biggest annoyances when cooking is needing to put two things in the oven at different temperatures and having to just wing everything to try and undercook one for longer and overcook the other shorter.

I've also finally got the hang of the old frying pan pizza technique recently and I think having a smaller oven cavity for the grill will help with temps as well as quicker preheating time. I'm not really a roast dinner kind of person so dont really need one massive oven.

a combi microwave would give similar utility but they only go up to 220c assuming all the sockets are on the same ring I may also run into load issues running effectively two ovens at the same time anyways.

if gas is a load of shite for oven cooking i'll probably stick with a single oven but surprisingly options for dual fuel freestanding cookers with just one oven are quite limited.

I would be tempted to bite the bullet and put a higher current circuit in, if that's an option.

If not, I spent many years cooking in a single gas oven and by and large it was fine. At Christmas, I had to rely on the goodwill of my neighbours for additional oven space.

These days, I wouldn't want to go back to a single oven. A free standing micro / combi would be a good addition to a single gas oven. Had a Panasonic combi for a long time. It was good.

As a counterpoint, we just got rid of a rangemaster 90cm dual fuel, which ran off a 13amp socket...

Agreed, that's why I got the combi microwave as well. I've never needed that to go above 220C given that the few things I'd be cooking above that can all go in the main oven together.

I'm not sure if it will make much difference for frying pan pizza, that's all about the direct heat which is going to be the same regardless of oven size.

Someone in the home DIY thread can probably tell you for certain but I can't see an issue with running a normal oven and combi microwave oven. The draw isn't much more than a normal microwave (a couple of hundred watts extra) and is less than kettle, washing machine, etc

I actually quite enjoyed the gas oven and was used to using the temperature gradient to move things about so they were ready at the right time.

When I first got an electric fan oven, it took a while to get used to the temp at the bottom being more or less the same as the top.

My wife has just announced ' I want fish for for dinner this weekend', which only happens a few times a year (usually in a restaurant). I'm thinking a whole fish, picked apart on the dining table with a tasty few sides. Any suggestions on types of fish/sides/way to cook it?

Wild sea bass baked on a bed of veg. There is a Nigel Slater recipe but it's very straightforward.

I had some lovely turbot as part of a hawksmoor tasting menu a few years ago that was served on the table and looked great, they don't have a recipe i could find (maybe in the hawksmoor at home book) but i'm sure there are recipes for something decent out there...

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My favourite fish for this would be bream (sea/black/gilt) - you can grill, fry or oven bake, the flesh is delicious, firm and creamy and the bones easily negotiated.

Something along these lines:

https://www.goodfood.com.au/recipes/whole-snapper-roasted-with-herbs-and-potato-20151004-43wj3

Yeah, great plan. As easy as it gets really. Now to figure out what to do with these two pumpkins left over from Halloween...

I've been meaning to try these guys: https://www.instagram.com/pesky_fish/

I always like to en papillotte fish.

Scoop, roast, freeze. Make risotto.
Salt bake that sea bass- because it’s fun as.

Something different, it’s simple, tasty and good fun

https://www.bascofinefoods.com/spanish-recipes/salt-baked-sea-bass/

Edit - what Lowbrows said ^ lol