by Neil Nicol

Created on: December 29, 2008

I remember being in a particular job which I hated. I worked five days a week, up to twelve or more hours a day and it was torture. Friday night was therefore the night upon which I breathed a sigh of relief and looked forward to my next two days. In order to celebrate this respite from purgatory, more often than not, I would treat myself to two things: a nice, juicy steak and a bottle of quality red wine.

Upon getting home with my purchases, the first thing I did was to open my wine to allow it to "breathe." I generally went then and still do for Australian wines, as probably my top ten favourite wines in all the world come from this locale. I know that the European wines - particularly French - are supposed to be better but I think that this is simple snobishness in the extreme and that they are vastly inferior to New World vintages at a quarter or less of the price!

I would then peel and chop an onion, half a tomato and brush clean a few small mushrooms. I took my trusty non-stick frying pan and added but a touch of either corn or sunflower oil and brought it up to a high heat. My steak, which would be beautifully marbled with a thick wedge of fat still on it, I would liberally douse with freshly ground black pepper on both sides before laying it lovingly in the hot pan. Often, the sizzling and spluttering would tempt me to reduce the heat but I knew that was never advisable when cooking steak. Let it splutter until its heart's content.

When the steak from the side appeared one third of the way cooked, I turned it carefully and left it until the other side appeared one third of the way cooked. I then removed the steak from the pan to a plate and covered it with foil to rest while I cooked my accompaniments.

I added the tomatoes and onions to the same pan to cook for a couple of minutes (at a reduced heat) before adding the mushrooms for the final couple of minutes. As the mushrooms were cooking, I poured a large glass of wine and plated my steak. By this time, the vegetables were ready to join it.

I have lost count of the number of times in which I celebrated a Friday night in this fashion but - although the spirit draining, horrendous job is long consigned to the past - I still often enjoy my trusty steak and wine meal! I hope very much that you too will try my simple yet satisfying and relaxing meal and let it soothe all your troubles away as it long ago did mine.

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