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I enjoy cooking, it’s something that relaxes me. I can forget about the code and focus on creating something else.

On the boat we ate quite a bit of ‘Angus’ Sirloin, I also had it a few times in the UK - seems Sirloin is a more popular cut up north. I have never been a fan of pan-fried steaks having grown up around braai’s but they managed to get it tasting pretty damn good. So the other day Jackie and I were shopping and I grabbed a 2-pack of ‘matured sirloin’ (from Superspar @ Paddocks) which looked pretty good. I also grabbed some red onions, red wine and watercrest. I set out making my first pan-fried sirloin. I fried the steaks in a hot pan with a little oil and when we sat down to eat, the steaks were appalling. It was actually one of the worst steaks I had ever eaten and I was horrified that I had produced it. The only other pan-fried steaks I had attempted were rumps and those seemed to come out okay? So what went wrong? How could I have totally destroyed this cut of meat? I had to get this right.

I did some reading on the internet and also watched this video which cleared up quite a bit. This one confirmed the technique and steps. I then produced a pan-fried Sirloin steak which rivalled some of the best fillets I’ve had at fine restaurants. It was bloody superb, I am still in a good mood about it and it’s 3 hours after I cooked/ate it. It’s changed my opinion on the “pan-fried steak” for life.

So here’s how I did it:

• I would say the biggest lesson I got from that was that you should take your steaks out of the fridge and leave them for 20-30 minutes or until they have reached room temperature *light bulb moment*. This step is critical for the pan-fried steak. For braais, we tend to do this anyway but whenever I would pan-fry a steak, it wouldn’t be out the packaging for more than 5-10 mins.
• The next step is to season properly. Lots of coarse salt and a little ground pepper on each side (30 seconds prior to cooking otherwise the salt will draw the moisture out).
• Put your griddle pan on the stove on full heat and wait for it to heat up. Do not add oil yet.
• Once pan is very hot, add a small amount of oil, just enough to coat the bottom.
• Wait until oil is so hot that it starts smoking, then add your 2 sirloins. Grill for 2 minutes.
• Turn 90 degrees (purely to get cool grill marks on the steak) and grill for a further 1 minute.
• Flip over, grill for 2 minutes. Turn 90 degrees and leave for a further 1 minute. So basically its 3 minutes either side so far.
• Place a heaped teaspoon of butter in between the steaks toward the end. You can add a drop of brandy too for flavouring (avoid burning your kitchen down).
• Let the steak fry in these juices for a further minute on either side which should produce a medium rare steak. So the cooking time in total is about 4 minutes a side.
• Turn the steaks onto their sides in the pan to seal all sides of the steak and to give the fat (if you have left it on) on the side some colour and flavour. Make sure you seal every side of the steak for a few seconds.
• Take steaks off and let them sit on a grill (or on a spoon). Do not leave the steak on a flat surface. Let it rest for about 2-3 minutes.
• Serve.

When you slice through the steak it should look nice and pink/rare with a crispy outer layer of skin/salt/pepper. A sauce option would be to throw a little more brandy/cognac into the pan to get that meat flavour. Then throw in some green pepper corns and some cream and now you have a pepper sauce mmm. Or soak some red onions in a little balsamic vinegar, olive oil and a dash soy sauce, then fry them up and you have caramelized red onions topping.

Have fun.

Some Edit’s:

• Make sure you have as many windows open as possible. If you have an extractor fan, use it. Turn smoke alarms off. Cooking the steak will create a LOT of smoke.
• If you find the steak is too black/burnt on the outside for your liking you can avoid seasoning with pepper - the pepper does tend to burn easily at such a high temperature.