First, choose your steak

• Fillet is the most tender and expensive of steaks, but can be a little tasteless.
• Sirloin and Rib-Eye tend to be a little less tender but the fat cover and marbling makes them far tastier. However at S.Collins & Son we dry age both our Rib-Eye and Sirloin steaks to ensure they stay nice and tender!
• Rump steak is the least expensive and succulent of the frying steaks but in some opinions the tastiest.

Cooking

Make sure your steak is at room temperature and that your pan is red hot. Immediately before cooking, lightly oil your steak with rape seed oil (this has a higher flash point) and season well.

Place your steak flat on the pan and cook on full heat for 2 minutes (for a steak that is about ¾”). Do not move the steak about. After 2 minutes, remove the steak from the pan to give the pan time to get back to full heat, and then replace the steak with the uncooked side down for another 2 minutes. Remove the steak and leave to rest on a warm plate for at least 4 minutes while you make the sauce.

Deglaze your pan with brandy or whiskey then let it cool a little. Add a good knob of butter, cream and green pepper corns and warm through then stir in any juices from your resting steak. Pour a little of your sauce over the steak, serve with chunky homemade oven chips and a rocket salad with the best red wine you can find.

Your steak should be rare or, at the very most, medium rare- any better done than that and you will have ruined a good steak!