Tuesday 29th Jul '08

For lunch today I had some leftover curry from Saturday. Curries always taste better on subsequent days after you've cooked it, I reckon.


After work, I drove down Ranford Road looking for a pet store or aquarium that Meng had told me about. After about fifteen minutes of driving in steadily growing traffic, I decided to give up and head home. Driving down Bannister Road, Canningvale, I spotted an aquarium store called Aquotix and did a U-turn to go check it out. I'm thrilled that I did because it's a great store. They've got everything there, the staff are really friendly and were of great assistance, and their live stock room was so bright and CLEAN! It's the cleanest aquarium centre I've been to and they are having a huge sale on most of their live fish stock. I've told Ben about it and we're heading there on Saturday to check it out and get me some fish! I ended up buying a sponge filter for my fry tank and an ammonium test kit.

At home, I set up the sponge filter and tested my main tank for ammonium levels. It's reading at 0.25-0.50ppm which is ok, but it really should be lower than that. I'll have to do another water change on Friday and then give the filter a really really good clean.

Happy with my new sponge filter in action, I set about making dinner. Craving a big juicy steak, I had bought a 'thick cut' sirloin steak from Coles. It's about one and half inches thick!


I cooked the steak in the pan with a dash of olive oil, sliced garlic and chilli flakes. Once the steak was cooked, I set it aside on my plate to let it rest while I prepared the vegetables.


I threw in a bunch of broccolini into the pan with the juices and added a bit of butter. I cooked the broccolini for only a few minutes until they were tender, not soggy and overcooked. I dished them out onto the plate with the steak and returned the pan to the stove to make the sauce. I poured the sauce over the broccolini and steak.

Looks like a gourmet steak meal from a restaurant, huh?

Creamy Mushroom & Pancetta Sauce
sliced garlic
sliced mushrooms
sliced pancetta
pinenuts
chopped almonds
cream

You can see in the photo that the steak was medium. Being such a thick steak, I was expecting it to be a bit on the rare/medium-rare side, which is how a steak like this should be eaten. If this had been the case, my trick would be to cover the meat with some sauce or have each mouthful with something else (ie vegetables) so I don't feel like I'm chewing on just a mouthful of raw bloody meat.

I think this is one of the best steaks I have ever cooked.