THE BEST STEAK DINNER

We have this tradition that every Mother's Day Mike makes me dinner, (although last year he forgot, and so did I for that matter). But since this is a once-a-year thing, it's a big deal. Now, usually he surprises me but this totally not normal 'lockdown' year, I had an overwhelming craving for a juicy rib-eye steak, which is unusual as I'm normally a veggie/pasta kind of gal. We just happened to have two perfect rib-eyes in the freezer, some russet potatoes in the veggie bin, some beautiful French butter and creme fraiche in the fridge and some simple salad ingredients. So, the husband played chef while I assisted making English mustard and Demerara sugar-encrusted steak (I know that sounds weird but it's fantastic) accompanied by baked potatoes oozing with French butter and creme fraiche and une petite salade on the side. If I tell you that, two nights later, I'm still dreaming about it, believe it. And if you have a BBQ with real coals, OMG your steaks done this way will be even more amazing.

Drool.

INGREDIENTS FOR 2

2 lovely rib-eye steaks

2 tbsp sharp English mustard

2 tbsp Demerara sugar

a few grinds of black pepper

2 large waxy potatoes (US russet or Australian Desiree both good)

some good French (or other good quality) butter

some creme fraiche or sour cream

sea salt

ingredients for your favourite salad (ours had romaine lettuce, cherry tomatoes, sliced red onion, maybe a few black olives, radish slices and a vinaigrette dressing)

METHOD

One hour before you want eat, pre-heat the oven to 205C. Place potatoes in foil parcels and drizzle some olive oil and sea salt over the top. Close parcels and place in hot oven for about 45 minutes. Unwrap parcels for last 10 minutes to crisp up the potato skins a bit.

Coat the two steaks in the English mustard, scatter the Demerara sugar over the top and grind some black pepper over them. Let them rest for about 15 minutes in room temperature. Heat a ridged griddle pan (or BBQ if you have one) until super hot. Throw your prepared steaks onto ridged pan and grill until done to your liking. We like ours medium so we cooked them for 4 minutes on one side, then 3 minutes on the other side.

Get your potatoes out of the oven and remove the foil. Split them open on your plates, season with sea salt and black pepper and be generous with the butter pats and sour cream. (Forget the diet for one day...)

Your steaks will be so juicy from the mustard and sugar coating and won't taste at all like mustard and sugar!

Add steaks to plates...

Place on tray with your side salad, two generous glasses of red (ours was an Argentinian Malbec) and some sparkling mineral water and sit down in front of Netflix...

I don't know about you but this is my idea of heaven. The only thing that would make it better would be if my daughter and son-in-law were with us but dem's da breaks sometimes