Sirloin

Ingredients:

1. When choosing a steak, sirloin is a fine choice due to its tasty, melt-in-the-mouth succulence. Good sirloin has just the right amount of fat and nice marbling.
2. Age of the steak is important, as the hanging process develops the flavor and tenderizes the meat. So ask your butcher how long the beef has been hung for. As a rule, 21 days as a minimum and 35 days as a maximum is a good range to go for.
3. Good beef should be a deep red color, like the meat featured below.
4. Check the beef has good marbling – little streaks of fat running through the meat. This melts when heated, helping the steak to baste itself from within as it cooks.

How to do it:

1. Heat your griddle or frying pan over a high heat, until smoking hot.
2. Brush the steak with TRIANA sunflower oil and season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
3. Don’t griddle more than two steaks at a time, and keep them spaced well apart. If you add more than two steaks to the pan at once, the temperature will drop and the steak will stew, rather than fry.
4. Don’t turn the steaks until good seared markings are achieved, then turn them over and cook on the other side (see timings, below).
5. You must let the steak rest for about 3 minutes before serving, to allow the juices that have been drawn to the surface to relax back into the meat.

How long to cook a steak for:

These timings are based on cooking a sirloin steak that’s about 2cm thick. (Cooking times will vary depending on the type and thickness of the steak, and how hot your pan is.)

Blue: 1 minute each side

Rare: 1½ minutes each side

Medium rare : 2 minutes each side

Medium: 2¼ minutes each side

Medium-well done: 2½ - 3 minutes each side.