When our friend Sandra and her daughter Martine were visiting from New Orleans last week, Sandra took a sip of her cocktail and told me, “I love your food, but give me something truly easy to make for dinner –with just four ingredients. You can name the post ‘The Lazy Gourmet’ –after me.” (Martine just shot me an apologetic look.)
I don’t think there’s anything lazy about cooking dinner for your family after a busy day –no mater how simple the recipe– but I liked her idea of finding extremely pared-down recipes with short shopping lists. And a couple of days before my friend Andrew (of the excellent blog Amalgamated Cocktails) had told me about one of his favorite cook books, the cheeky (but mostly credible) 1930 classic French Cooking in Ten Minutes by Edouard de Pomaine. So I decided to put these two concepts together to make The Speedy Gourmet, a series of posts about very quick meals with no compromises on flavor, quality or sophistication.
The rules: five ingredients (sorry Sandra) for a complete entree; fifteen minutes from a shopping bag to a dinner plate, and we’ll assume you already have water, salt, pepper, and basic cooking fats (olive oil, a neutral oil like canola, and butter).
And here’s our first speedy feast: beef steak with soy and butter sauce and sautéed spinach. (Serves two, with sauce for up to four.)
Soy sauce and butter are a magical combination. When their flavors commingle in the right proportion, they bring umami —the wonderfully indescribable fifth flavor beyond sweet, sour, salty and bitter– to every food they touch. And when drizzled over a piece of carefully cooked beef, the effect is mouth-watering, transformative. You could build on these flavors with herbs, spices, sautéed mushrooms, but reduced to its essentials this dish is simply perfect.
Given the richness of the dish, I’ve avoided any heavy starchy side. The simple sautéed spinach is a nice foil for the beef, and it’s mighty tasty with the sauce too. For dessert, I would offer clementines and a bowl of pomegranate seeds.
Time: 0:00
Take out a grill pan or heavy skillet, a sauté pan or large skillet, a small skillet, tongs, measuring spoons, a small whisk, a chef’s knife, a cutting board and a serving spoon.
Put the grill pan or heavy skillet on the stove over high heat.
Unpack your five ingredients: two 6-ounce (175g) beef steaks (about 1 inch (2.5cm) thick); about 8 ounces(250g) of fresh spinach; soy sauce; a clove of garlic; a lemon.
Take out salt, pepper, five tablespoons of unsalted butter and olive oil.
Dry and liberally season the meat with salt and pepper.
Wash the spinach in a colander (but don’t dry it).
Time: 4:00
Put the meat in the hot grill pan. For medium rare, turn the meat three times, so that it cooks for about two minutes on each side twice. If the pan smokes, turn the heat down a bit.
Peel and thinly slice a clove of garlic.
Put the sauté pan on the stove over medium-low heat.
Time: 5:00
Pour about 2 teaspoons of olive oil into the sauté pan
Time: 6:00
Turn the meat over.
Add the garlic to the oil in the sauté pan.
Time: 7:00
Add the spinach to the sauté pan and toss. Season lightly with salt and pepper. (Toss the spinach from time to time as it warms and wilts.)
Time: 8:00
Turn the meat again.
Toss the spinach.
Pour yourself a glass of wine.
Time: 9:00
Turn the meat for the last time.
Toss the spinach. If it’s all warmed through and wilted, turn the heat to low.
Take out a small skillet or sauce pan and place it on the stove over medium heat.
Add about 5 tablespoons of butter to the skillet. When it melts, add 1 1/2 teaspoons of soy sauce and whisk to combine.
Time: 11:00
Remove the steak from the pan and place on a plate. (If you have an instant-read thermometer the internal temperature should be about 135F.)
Add about 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the butter sauce and whisk well. (The addition of olive isn’t necessary to the flavor, but it does stabilize the sauce, which would otherwise tend to separate. A splash of cream has the same effect.)
Cut 2 lemon wedges.
Time: 14:00
Slice the steak on the diagonal into about 1-inch strips and place on dinner plates. Lift the spinach out of the sauté pan with tongs, letting any excess moisture drain back into the pan, and then place it alongside the meat. Spoon the sauce over the meet, garnish with a lemon wedge and
Time: 15:00
Serve.
