Being able to cook and serve the perfect steak is a life skill every man should have. We went to Cooks Academy in Dublin to learn from the pros how to do it.
There are certain skills every man should have at his disposal. Being able to wrestle a bear to the ground, change the tyres on a JCB and programme the washing machine to perform a gentle hand wash cycle are the three obvious ones, but feeding yourself is probably even more important.
And while you might get away with a diet of spaghetti hoops, toast, Lucozade and Refresher bars for a while, that just won’t cut it in the long-term, especially if you are trying to impress someone with your cooking skills.
That’s where the humble steak comes in. Almost everyone loves steak, but for a number of reasons people are either afraid to try or they do and make a bags of it, putting them off for life. But after a few hours in the presence of a chef called Brian from Dublin’s Cooks Academy, I am now a steak-making machine, and I have the sauces to prove it too.
I enrolled in their Steaks and Three Sauces class, a two-and-a-half hour class that is not only great craic, but really well designed too. My group was 75 per cent male, showing that more and more men are taking action to learn how to cook properly.
After talking us through how to make a delicious pepper sauce, Brian got down to the serious business of the meat itself. I was taught what to ask for at the butchers, that leaving the steak out of the fridge to reach room temperature was vital to cook it properly and the thorny world of whether to oil the steak or the pan first (Brian is a pan man) was also debated.
The most important thing I was taught was to open all the windows in your kitchen first, as the pan needs to be literally smoking hot to cook the steak properly. Once that point is reached add some oil (not olive oil either, rapeseed is good) and then it is just a matter of sealing it on both sides for a few minutes, depending on thickness of the steak and how you like it done.
Butter was added in the final two minutes to really make the steak juicy before being left to rest for a few minutes. Tips on how to do a well done steak were also passed on, really good advice as that is still how many people like it, and how to do it without making it as tough as Chuck Norris is easier than you would expect.
The class also shows you how to make a few other sauces for the steak, and for me that was the highlight. Great steak deserves a great accompaniment and I would never have attempted to make a Hollandaise before. But, after a serious session of hand whisking, a perfectly smooth Hollandaise sauce was ready to serve without even a hint of scrambled egg. It was definitely my proudest moment.
A superbly tangy Salsa Verde (pictured above) and a delicious blue cheese butter were also demonstrated to us and I picked up loads of skills I can use for other types of cooking, like how to puree garlic with ease, seasoning tips, the correct way to chop herbs and how long you can keep stuff in the fridge.
The class concludes with all of us tucking into our steaks and sauces at a communal table. It sounds corny but the sense of satisfaction was palpable on everyone’s face as they enjoyed the fruits of their work.
In short, cooking steaks is easy, but ensuring you get the best out of the meat so that it is prepared properly, cooked properly, and served properly with a delicious sauce, are skills you need to learn.
Trust us, it will make a real man of you.
For more on Cooks Academy’s course, just click the logo below.
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