Steak night

Topsham, Devon 18 August, 2010 The gals are away - Kim in the Midlands, Bella in Portugal - just me and Guy tonight. First we raid the wine cellar to find something really good:

A bottle of Clos L'Eglise 1989 Pomerol, purchased nearly 20 years ago en primeur. I'm by nature a hoarder. Sometimes these old bottles just demand to be dusted off and drunk.

What to have with this special old bottle? Steak, what else. And not any old steak. I head out to Darts Farm to Gerald David's for massive t-bone, weighing in at around 900g - just about right for the two of us, we reckon.

We decide to try an unusual method of dry-salting the meat, about 3 tbsp of sea salt per side for 45 minutes - for further explanation see this article

First we decide to char-grill some local squid from David Kerley at the Fish Shed to make an unusual bruschetta.

Guy makes a salsa: chopped tomatoes, shallots, lemon zest and juice, chillies, cilantro, extra virgin olive oil, anything else, Guy?

We thread the cleaned squid on skewers and cook over a very hot grill for no more than a minute a side.

The squid bruschetta is an excellent appetizer with a glass of nicely chilled French rosé

Meanwhile, the grill is cranked up to its absolute hottest setting. We wash off the ample quantities of salt from the meat and dry it well, then slap it on to the grill with the cover on. The heat is ferocious.

About 2 minutes a side, turning each minute to get the grill marks, is sufficient (to be honest, we could have cooked it for even less).

What about the Pomerol? We have been very patient, but it is now time to sample it with the steak.

Is this the perfect dinner? The grass-fed Red Ruby beef is meltingly tender and full of flavour; the Pomerol is sublime, with the rich velvety complexity that only comes from lengthy ageing in the bottle.

Sunset on the Exe is an added bonus.

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