Fillet steak with Jura whisky mushroom sauce

plan

You will need to arm yourself with:

• A steak
• A few asparagus tips
• A few slivers of Serrano ham or similar
• 250ml of full fat milk or single cream
• A splash of veg oil
• A knob of butter
• A few cloves of garlic (peeled)
• A sprig of rosemary
• A dram or 2 of whisky
• A few mushrooms, chestnut, chopped
• S & P
• A splash of water

Prep

1. Wrap the Serrano ham tightly around the asparagus.
2. Chop the mushrooms
3. Get all ingredients to hand

When you are good to go, light the stove & crack on.

Notes: For this meal I’m using is the Trangia triangle stove with a spirit burner, along with a ‘Hunters Pan’ made by another Swedish company called Stabilotherm. Both are cracking bits of kit.

Cook

Stage 1 – Wrapped asparagus

While the pan is warming up, drizzle a little veg oil in & pop in the asparagus (yeah, I know, one is looking a bit chunkier than the others as I got a bit carried away). Fry off for 5-10 mins turning occasionally.

Stage 2 – Steak

Now with the pan hot as buggery (it needs to be smoking in other words) drop in the steak. If you want to season with some salt & pepper fill yer boots. After 2 mins flip it over & then sear the other side for 2 mins. (BTW look-up ‘Maillard reaction’)

Drop in the butter, garlic cloves & rosemary & the baste the steak with molten butter for approx 2 mins. Then take the steak out of the pan & let it rest on a plate or a container. If you can, cover the container with a towel to keep warm.

Note: The timings for this are dependent on the thickness of yer steak & how rare you like it. If you like steak ‘well-done’ I suggest you give yourself a good kick up the arse & then once you’ve done that, Foxtrot Oscar & find another blog to look at.

Stage 3 – Sauce

Pour out some of the fat in the pan & then CAREFULLY add the dram of whisky to deglaze (basically soften the burnt bits). THE WHISKY WILL CATCH FIRE & FLARE UP.

Seriously, whisky has a high alcohol volume which means that it will instantly vaporise & ignite on a hot pan/near a flame (see the pic below if you don’t believe me). Therefore, if you are sat too close you may remove some if not all of your facial hair.

Once the alcohol has burnt off & your beard/eyebrows have been extinguished, use a spatula or spoon to scrape off all the softened crusty bits on the pan. This gives flavour to the sauce.

Add the chopped mushrooms into the mix & stir for a few mins, letting them absorb some of the lush whisky/steak juices. Then pour in about the milk or cream & keep stirring.

Reduce the mixture (basically let some of the liquid evaporate) until it is of a creamy consistency. If it is getting too thick, add some more milk/cream or water even. If it is too thin keep reducing it.

Finally, taste & season, taste & season. As a personal preference I always add lots of pepper to my sauce.

Eat

Add the steak & asparagus back to the pan & tuck in (or you could go a bit poncey & put it on a plate like I’ve done. Remember to mop up any delicious sauce with some bread (if you have any).

Note: Don’t eat the rosemary as it’s like chewing a twig.