I have always really enjoyed cooking and any opportunity I get I'm straight in the kitchen, since I moved to Morocco I have had the luxury of a lot of spare time on my hands and I felt no better way to use some of them spare moments to embrace my love of delicious food.

Anytime I go out for a meal steak is often the first thing that catches my eye from the menu, I like it cooked medium/rare teamed with a generous helping of chips and a creamy sauce.  I often find that the steak can be cooked just under or over so decided to create the perfect steak at home and see how mine compared.

To ensure your steak is the best it can be I would recommend visiting your local butchers, the quality is always so much better than supermarket packaged meat, you can choose exactly which cut you would like and helping out local business' is much more beneficial to our disappearing high streets.  For this meal, in all honesty I'm unsure of the cut as even managing to ask the butcher for it, in French may I add, was quite a task, I would say it is closest to a fillet.

I always take my steak out of the fridge at least six hours prior to cooking and keep at room temperature uncovered, this helps all the juices to make their way back into the meat, this ensures the steak will be very succulent and juicy.  Think of a sponge, when you squeeze it out it is dry and light when you add water is fuller and moist(sorry for use of that word it creeps me out as much as you)

Seasoning is the make or break for me when it comes to a deliciously flavoured steak, nothing fancy just salt and pepper.  To make sure your steak doesn't dry out just add a pinch of salt and pepper a second before cooking, adding salt before this point will dry out your steak.  Put half a teaspoon of oil in the pan and turn the heat on, make sure the pan is very hot before putting your steak in, you can tell it is hot enough when the oil starts to smoke slightly.  Pop in a knob of butter and allow to melt, this helps to brown the outside of the steak and your pan is now prepared for the steak.

Cooking steak is actually really simple.  Depending on how you like it cooked timing is key.  For the perfect rare steak, meaning only the outside is cooked and the meat inside is still very pink all the way through, two minutes on each side is plenty.  If you prefer your steak medium a good four minutes each side will make sure the meat is mostly cooked with just a small area in the middle still pink.  Well done steaks in my eye are a crime, what is the point in overcooking a gorgeous piece of meat, but some people prefer it this way and cook theirs for around six to eight minutes each side.  Medium/rare is my preference so I cook for 3 minutes each side.

After your steak is cooked leave to rest for a few moments, this helps make sure your steak is juicy and tender, not for too long, just while your are loading your plate with your favourite accompaniments.  For this meal I decided to serve my perfectly cooked steak with homemade chips, grilled mushrooms, home made onion rings and blue cheese sauce.

Sauces to steak are what perfume and aftershave is to us ladies and gents, not necessary but a delightful addition.  There are so many different flavours that work well with steak from Diane (creamy mushroom), blue cheese (creamy Stilton), Peppercorn (creamy with peppercorns) or if you wanna get fancy Jack Daniels Glaze.  I only chose a blue cheese sauce this time because we had some lying in the fridge but I would normally choose peppercorn.  If you would like recipes for any of the sauces please let me know in the comments, they are very easy to make but always good to know.

There you have your perfect steak with yummy side dish options, I'd like to leave you with the only question asked when discussing steak,

How do you like it cooked?