As I walked past the butchers this evening I first reveled in the fact that they were still open and then at the wonderful looking piece of ribeye steak (you can tell a good piece by the amount of ‘marbling‘, the fat is where the flavour comes from), I thought some root veg, glazed with honey and thyme - Nice! And not much fuss either.

Roasting the vegetables

First set your oven to around 200 C / gas mark 6 into which place the largest roasting tray you have with a enough olive oil to thinly cover the base, this is to bring both the tray and the oil (in the fine words of Keith Floyd) “up to cooking speed”.

All the veg needs chopping into equal chunks of about 2-3 cms, first chop the potato and put in a pan of cold water. Bring to the boil, then after about a minute turn the heat off and add the other veg, these only really a minute to give them some heat. Drain off all the water and return the pan to the heat for a few seconds to dry it out, once the veg has drained put them back in the pan and remove from the heat. Add a drizzle of olive oil (and I naughtily add a nog of butter), a little pepper, the thyme (pull the leaves from the sprigs) and two teaspoons of runny honey. Stir all this together to coat the veg and add to your roasting tray in the over - make sure that the veg is evenly spread, giving the heat a chance to get at as much of the honey as possible. The veg will take between 30-40 minutes to cook depending on how small or large your chunks are. Stir the veg every 10 minutes so that every side of the veg gets even cooked.

Grilling the steak

Once you have the veg in the oven prepare the steaks by sprinkling them with freshly ground black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. Do not, however, season with salt at this stage as it will bring the juices out of the steak to soon. Rub this into the steaks.

As with the veg, cooking time for the steak will depend on their thinkness and how you like them cooked. My preferred method of cooking steak is using a grill pan.  Start grilling the steak about 15 minutes before your veg is due to be ready, making sure you’ve got the pan really hot - the steak should start to sizzle imediatly - be sure to turn the heat down if the pan gets too hot.

A trick for judging how cooked a steak is is to touch your thumb and your first finger together, now prod the muscle at the base of your thumb. This will feel quite soft and be something like a rare steak should feel to the touch (obviously use a utensil when you prod the steak!). Touching your thumb and index finger for medium rare, your ring finger for medium and the little one for, God forbid, well done.

With this in mind I’d give your steaks about 7/6 minutes on the first size, preferrably you should only move the steak to turn it 45 degrees to get a criss-cross pattern. Once you’ve flipped the steak you should only need another 4 minutes tops. This is now the time to sprinkle liberally with sea salt, you sill see the juices begin to come out. Once cooked to your liking rest the steaks, that is to say allow the meat to relax, for about 5 minutes - don’t worry abobut them not being piping hot, they are much the better for it.

Whilst the steaks are resting add half a glass of red wine and a nog of unsalted butter to the grill pan to deglaze it, this makes for a lovely French-style ‘jus’ to go over your steak and veg, which by now will have caramelised beautifully… Mmm…