Category: Cooking With Vincent

Vincent Price’s scrumptious Banana Nut Bread

Have you, like me, been letting your bananas get a little too ripe lately? Well don’t throw them away as I’ve got another tasty recipe from Mary and Vincent Price’s A Treasury of Great Recipes cookbook – Banana Nut Bread. It really is so simple to make and you can scoff a slice or two for breakfast, morning or afternoon tea, or even as a late-night snack.

Here’s how to make it and at the end of the post, there’s a video of me making it. Hope you enjoy!

INGREDIENTS
Butter
Sugar
All-purpose flour
Baking soda
Salt
Bananas
Walnuts

METHOD
1. Preheat oven to moderate (350F/4).

2. Cream together until lights: 1/2 cup (113g) butter and 1 cup (200g) sugar.

3. Beat in 2 eggs.

4. Sift together 2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Stir into butter-sugar mixture, blending well.

5. Stir in 1 cup mashed ripe bananas and 1/2 cup (40g) chopped walnuts.

2. Spoon batter into a well buttered 1-pound bread tin (9 1/2 x 5 1/2 x 2 3/4) and bake in moderate over for 1 hour, or until loaf tests done.

7. Cool for 5 minutes, then turn out on rack to cool completely.

MY TIPS
When creaming the butter and sugar, ensure the butter is at room temperature to ensure a smooth mixture. Sometimes I cheat and put the butter in the microwave for 1min using the quick defrost setting. Just don’t let it turn to liquid.

As for the eggs, I always take them out of the fridge a couple of house before using them. Like the butter, they work best at room temperature. I also lightly beat them separately before folding them gently into the mixture. This helps with the rise of the loaf I suspect.

If you don’t have any walnuts around, try toasted almonds or cashews (40g) or even chia seeds (1tsp).

As for the bananas – the riper then better I say. And rather than waste them if you have more than 1 cup mashed, just throw the whole lot in and give the baking an extra few minutes. Just so long as you knife comes out clean you will be OK.

Looking pretty sad, but look what they can become (below)…

MY VERDICT
A winner! This has become a firm favourite in my household, and we are now making it once a week. Great toasted with some butter and jam.

Here’s a demo of how to make this delicious dish from scratch.

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The Vincent Price Co*Star Cookbook | Join in the fun and test a recipe

Call out for test cooks! Absolutely everyone welcome, whatever your cooking prowess – there is even a GREEN SALAD recipe up for grabs folks! Choose a recipe and spread the word….

I’m excited to announce that I am working with Jenny Hammerton of Silver Screen Suppers on a new book featuring 100 movie star recipes. I will be writing about 50 of Vincent’s films and co stars and Jenny has chosen two dishes to accompany each movie. There will be a Vincent Price recipe for each, with a Co*Star accompaniment.

All you have to do is select a recipe from the list, which is being hosted on the Silver Screen Suppers website, and leave Jenny a message in the comments box. She will then send out the recipe to you.

We are allocating one test cook per recipe for the book, but if you’d like to try more than one, Jenny will be happy to send them out to you.

We totally understand that during the Covid-19 epidemic certain ingredients might be difficult to obtain but we can discuss suitable substitutions. Take the plunge and pick something, it will be fun, we guarantee it!

All test cooks will be thanked in our acknowledgements, and we may use some of your feedback about the recipe to add some FLAVOUR to the book!

SO HEAD OVER TO SILVER SCREEN SUPPERS NOW

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Vincent Price’s Pasticcio di polenta – a rich, but simple lockdown larder recipe

As we are all in lockdown mode at the moment, I’ve been trying to avoid heading out to the shops as much as possible and so am relying on what’s in my kitchen cupboards to rustle up some tasty dishes with the minimum amount of ingredients and fuss.

Well, I found some leftover cornmeal (AKA polenta) that I had bought to make a lemon drizzle cake ages ago and decided that would be my key ingredient. OK, the expiry date was 2014!!!!, but I was not going to throw it out. Now what to make?

My go-to…. Mary and Vincent Price’s A Treasury of Great Recipes

My go-to book is Mary and Vincent Price’s A Treasury of Great Recipes which was first published in 1965, and got a 50th anniversary reprint in 2015. I have tried quite a few now (check them out in the Cooking with Vincent and his Co*Stars section of this website), and I found one that seemed not to elaborate and required just some basic ingredients: Pasticcio Di Polenta – or Cornmeal with Mushrooms.

INGREDIENTS
Yellow cornmeal
Salt
Butter (I used unsalted)
Bread crumbs (I used panko)
Mushrooms (I used chestnut)
Cream, (I used double)
Parmesan cheese, grated

POLENTA
Vincent and Mary’s method of making polenta required a double boiler, which I do not have. So I used two saucepans. Also there was no amount given as to how much cornmeal to add to the quart of water, so I just made a guess (it worked I think).

Firstly, I brought the water (3 UK cups) to the boil, added salt, then gradually mixed in the polenta (I used 2 cups as I wanted to use up what I had left in the packet), and stir quickly.

Once it had thickened (which was very quick), I placed the saucepan on top of another one half filled with boiling water, covered it, and left it to simmer for 2 hours.

Then I poured it into a casserole dish (there was too much mixture for a loaf shape dish, which is in the original recipe) and chilled it overnight.

PASTICCIO
1. Preheat oven to moderate (350/4).
2. Turn out chilled polenta and slice it into 3 horizontal layers.
3. Butter the baking dish and sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of bread crumbs.
4. Place a sliced layer of polenta on bottom of dish. Dot with 1 tablespoon butter. Cover with: 1/2 cup sliced mushroom caps and 3 tablespoons cream. Sprinkle with: 1 tablespoon grated parmesan.
5. Do the same with the second slice.
6. Put last slice on top. Dot with 1 tablespoon butter and sprinkle with 1 tablespoons grated parmesan. Cover and bake 1 1/2hours in a moderate oven.

Not the most even of horizontal slices are they?
I used two mushroom caps for each layer. Top tip: there’s no need to waste those leftover mushroom stalks, keep them for use in a stir fry or soup
Yum! Was it rich? Yes siree!

MY VERDICT
Delicious with a capital D and It didn’t matter that the cornmeal was four years past its expiry date. Although in retrospect I think a loaf tin would have given me extra thickness so as to cut the three slices more evenly.

Now what also attracted me to making polenta, was that it is very versatile. I’ve already made chips (which went very well with the homemade strawberry and chilli jam that I had made a few days ago with some strawberries that were just about to go off), and I shall next try Vincent’s suggesting of frying some slices, then wrapping them in bacon and baking them until golden brown and crisp. I’ve also found another packet of cornmeal, so I think I’m going to whip up some muffins next.

These polenta crisps were light and crispy.
Here’s the actual recipe (with my notes) from A Treasury of Great Recipes
This classic culinary tome got a 50th Anniversary reprint in 2015

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Murder, He Cooked | Cesar Romero’s Arroz con Pollo

Last year, my foodie friend Jenny Hammerton, who curates Silver Screen Suppers, published the Columbo cookbook featuring recipes from all the show’s guest stars. It was great fun to be asked to contribute by taste testing some of the recipes.

I naturally chose the Vincent Price episode, Lovely but Lethal, which featured Vera Miles as that week’s guest villain. Her recipe, Mexican Casserole, was super cheesy but a little disappointing , but I also chose to test out Roddy McDowall’s poached pears, which has since become a firm favourite.

Jenny’s next book will be based on Murder, She Wrote and she’s hosting a cookalong to get everyone to sample the recipes she intends to feature in the forthcoming book. Now, being a huge Batman fan (in which Vincent egg-celled as Egghead), I’ve chosen Cesar Romero (aka the Joker) and his Arroz con Pollo, a traditional dish of Spain and Latin America, closely related to paella, that he came across in Havana when he was a little boy.

ARROZ CON POLLO: THE RECIPE

MY VERDICT:
So how did the dish turn out? Rather good, I must say. This is a really simple one-pot dish, but with tasty flavours. I’d never used lard before, but it works a treat in giving the chicken a nice golden colour, and making this recipe did give me a chance to use up some of the saffron I bought on my last trip to Spain.

As for the small can of pimientos (red, heart-shaped sweet peppers ), I had the devil of the time tracking that down – only to find it readily available at Lidl and Waitrose. I had been looking for tiny ones (like those you see stuck in olives) – duh!

Cesar Romero’s Arroz con Pollo looks good even before adding in the water and rice

THE MEASUREMENTS:
And as for the chicken, I opted to use my local butcher and boy that really made a difference. It was so plump I ended up keeping one breast to make one of my faves (yellow curry with potatoes). If you do end up trying this recipe yourself, there’s enough here for four servings.

Final touches: Pimientos, peas and good splash of sherry

As with most vintage US-based recipes, I had to revaluate the weights and measures. So for 1/2 can tomatoes, I used 0.88mls (as the standard US measure is 355ml); 1 pound of rice became two cups; the wineglass of sherry (I used Tesco’s Jerez-Xeres’ Fino Sherry) worked out to be 2/3 US cup; and I used 59g of Pimientos, which I sliced. The whole thing cost around £16. I’m certainly trying this again, but next time I might add more of the pimientos and a bigger pinch of saffron.

Interestingly, Batman isn’t the only thing that links Cesar Romero and Vincent Price. Just the other day, I was re-watching Irwin Allen’s all-star 1956 epic, The Story of Mankind, and who should pop up but Cesar playing the Spanish envoy to Philip II opposite Agnes Moorehead’s Elizabeth I (Agnes of course was in The Bat with Vinnie and worked with him on the touring stage production of George Bernard Shaw’s Don Juan in Hell in the early-1950s). To bad they didn’t have any scenes together though. But here’s Cesar’s bit in the film.

Now, here’s something you don’t see every day. My friend Robert Taylor in the US was good friends with Cesar and he’s sent me this hilarious picture (see below) of his personalised travelling bag. It’s rather camp, don’t you think and screams the 1970s?

Well, the story goes that it was custom-made by some artisans in the Mexican village that Cesar used to vacation at and they gifted it to him – along with a couple of other items. Robert’s not sure if Cesar ever actually used them, but he was gracious enough to accept them. They now reside alongside Robert’s other film memorabilia of Hollywood’s golden age.

The Murder, She Wrote episode in which Cesar appears in, Paint Me a Murder, is chock full of famous faces, including Ron Moody, Stewart Granger, Robert Goulet, Cristina Raines, Judy Geeson and Capucine. Cesar plays a famous painter who thinks someone is planning to kill him so they can make a fortune from his paintings (which could triple in price once he’s dead).

It’s just a shame that Vincent never appeared on the long-running show, and being an art expert in real life, he would have been perfect for this episode, which would have not only giving him the chance to team up with another Batman alumni, but also to work once again with Angela Lansbury, who played Queen Anne in 1948’s The Three Musketeers opposite villainous Richelieu.

Now, if you want to know more about Cesar, here’s a wonderful tribute courtesy of A&E.

For more about Jenny’s Murder, She Wrote cookbook, click on this link: https://www.silverscreensuppers.com/jerry-orbach/lansburied-alive-in-seattle-a-murder-she-wrote-extravaganza

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Made with white bread and gelatin – my, these cherry pies are awful

Each year, I participate in an annual Pieathlon with a host of food bloggers from around the globe so that I can share some of Vincent Price’s own recipes from his repertoire.

This year, however, I thought I’d go a bit surreal and select a dish from Salvador Dali’s decadent 1973 gastronomic tome Les Dîners de Gala. Devoted to the pleasures of taste, it comes with a warning from the legendary artist: ‘If you are a disciple of one of those calorie-counters who turn the joys of eating into a form of punishment, close this book at once; it is too lively, too aggressive, and far too impertinent for you.’

The basic principal of the annual Piethon organised by Yinzerella (who runs dinneriserved1972.com) is for everyone to send in a recipe, whereby we are then assigned a pie of her choosing. Now, I think she’s making me pay for my choice: which was Dali’s Oasis leek pie, a very rich dish filled with bacon, cheese, heavy cream and leeks.

For me, she selected a 1970s Weight Watches recipes for Cherry Pies sent in by Surly over at VintageRecipeCards.com. It’s pretty simple to make, but has some ingredients I truly dislike: white bread, artificial sweetener and gelatin. And aside from the gelatin (I went for a vegan version), I played by the rules. The results were – very stodgy indeed.

There are no sizes given as to how big the pie dish should be and when I crumbed up the 2 slices of bread, it didn’t reach the ends of the apple pie dish that I normally use. So I opted to make 12 mini-pies instead. For this first effort, I ended up crumbing 6 pieces of bread and added 5 teaspoons of the crumb mixture into each case before pressing them down. Then I popped the tray in the fridge to cool down for 10-minutes.

Next, I made the cherry mixture using 250g of Tesco’s Sweetheart cherries from Kent (you get 32 in a box, just perfect for this recipe). Now, I don’t have a cherry pitter, so I had to cut them up a bit (unlike in the picture, where they are most full). The recipe called for one envelope of unflavoured gelatin, so I used one packet of Dr Oetker Vege-Gel. There’s no indication as to how long to stir this over a low heat (just ‘until dissolved)’. So I did it for 5-minutes to allow the cherries to break down a bit. Big mistake, the resulting mixture came out thick and rubbery.

I certainly had the right amount of mixture for the 12 cases, though, and used Olive Oil margarine (the recipe calls for imitation or diet margarine, but I couldn’t find that). Into the oven they went and I had to extend the 10-minute baking time to 25-minutes to get a pale golden colouring on the pies.

The first batch of Weight Watches Cherry Pies were too bready

The test taste proved hilarious – everyone agreed they were just eating warm bread with something tasteless on top. The pies lacked any flavour from the cherries, and they missed the sweetness.

So, for the second batch, I replaced the artificial sweetener with some Caster Baking Sugar, reduced the Vege-Gel to just 3g, and made the cases thinner, with just 3 teaspoons of crumb. I also used a US measure of water instead of a UK measure. The result: more flavour in the cherry mixture, but the base was still bready and now too soft. None of my tasters liked them.

So will it be third time lucky? I don’t think so. Now, if you want to read how Yinzerella got on making my selection, then check it out here: PIEATHALON 6: SALVADOR DALI’S OASIS LEEK PIE (1973)

And here’s what the other the other Pieathletes baked for you!

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Vincent Price’s Pumpkin Pie makes for a perfect Thanksgiving treat!

While we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving here in the UK, I shall be getting into the spirit today cooking up this tasty Pumpkin Pie recipe from Mary and Vincent Price’s Come into the Kitchen Cook Book, which was first published in 1969, and got a glorious reprint last year.

Come Into the Kitchen Cook Book coverVINCENT PRICE’S PUMPKIN PIE
1 9-inch unbaked pie shell
1½ cups canned or mashed cooked pumpkin
3 eggs, well beaten
1½ cups heavy cream
¾ cups granulated sugar
½ tsp salt
1 tsp ground mace
½ tsp ground nutmeg
½ tsp ground ginger

Instructions
• Make the pie shell with a high scalloped edge, refrigerate for several hours.
• Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
• In a large bowl (with a pouring lip if you have one) combine the pumpkin with the eggs, then the cream, sugar, salt and spices. Blend well and pour into the chilled pie shell.
• Bake for 15 mins, then reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 50-65 minutes more, or until knife inserted in center of the pie comes out with only a few flecks clinging to it.
• Chill before serving.

Makes about 8 servings.

Come Into the Kitchen Cook BookVincent Price's Pumpkin Pie

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Vincent and Mary Price’s Steak Au Poivre | Probably the best steak recipe ever!

A Treasury of Great RecipesHaving tried four of the 10 steak recipes in Vincent and Mary Price’s A Treasury of Great Recipes, the one I keep coming back to is Steak Au Poivre (Black Pepper Steak). OMG! I’m salivating just at the mention of it.

‘If you think, as I do, that black pepper and rare beef make beautiful music together, then you will like this steak recipe too. We learned it in Chicago from friends who had brought it back from France in this stockyard city must be especially alert to new ways of preparing beef. This one is a winner.’ VINCENT PRICE

Steak Au Poivre: A Treasury of Great RecipesSteak Au Poivre (Black Pepper Steak)

INGREDIENTS
sirloin steak
dry white wine
brandy (optional)
butter
cooking oil
watercress

METHOD
1 Wipe with a damp cloth: a 1 1/4-inch sirloin steak (3 pounds). Dry carefully.

2 Coarsely crush: 2 tablespoons peppercorns. (Use a mortar and pestle or a potato masher.)

3 Pound crushed pepper into both sides of the steak, smacking it in with flat side of a cleaver or the potato masher. Steak should be quite thickly covered. Let stand for 2 hours.

4 In a heavy skillet heat: 1 tablespoon butter and 1 teaspoon cooking oil. (This mixture can get hotter without burning strain it if you want the loose bits of than butter alone.)

5 Over high heat sear steak quickly on peppercorns both sides. Cook 5 minutes on each side.

6 Remove steak to a hot platter.

7 Stir into pan: 2/3 cup dry white wine and 1 tablespoon brandy (optional). Boil wine rapidly for 2 minutes, scraping up brown meat drippings at bottom of pan.

8 Remove from heat and swirl in: 2 tablespoons butter.

PRESENTATION
Strain the sauce over the steak (or don’t strain it if you want the loose bits of pepper too) and garnish with watercress.

VERDICT
My go-to steak recipe at the moment. It’s simply, hugely flavoursome (the aroma of the searing black pepper is quite something) and truly honours the produce – with my choice cut being fillet. You also get quite alot of sauce out of this, which you can keep refrigerated for 2 days.

Steak Au Poivre (Black Pepper Steak)

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Hôtel de la Poste’s Steak Chevillot | Four steps to steak heaven

Steak Chevillot: A Treasury of Great RecipesIn my quest to try out all the steak recipes in Vincent and Mary Price’s A Treasury of Great Recipes, here’s a look at Hôtel’s de la Poste’s Steak Chevillot.

‘At the heart of one of the richest wine-growing regions of Burgundy is the medieval city of Beaune. Here, every autumn after the grape harvest, a famous wine auction is held in the courtyard of the ancient hospital for the poor. The Hospices de Beaune has been housing the poor for more than 500 years on the proceeds of the great vineyards which it owns. It also owns a fine painting by Roger van der Weyden, among other treasures, and this handsome Gothic building remains one of the unfor- getable pleasures of our visit to Beaune. The other is the Hôtel de la Poste. I would trade you every chromium plated motel in the United States for one such French inn. This one stands on the Street of the Cask-Makers after all, wine Beaune’s chief industry It’s present owner and chef, Marc Chevillot, is the grandson of the founder the hotel. Like his grandfather and his father before him, young Chevillot is a wine dealer as well as a gifted chef. He started as a kitchen apprentice in his father’s kitchen, and later was employed by the incom parable Fernand Point at La Pyramide. When you sit down to a meal at the Hôtel de la Poste, what you get is a distillation of a long tradition of fine wines food, and the realization that great cooking doesn’t just come about overnight. Out of respect for our amateur standing, however, M. gave us some recipes which are excellent without being at all difficult to follow – one of which is Steak Chevillot ’ VINCENT PRICE

STEAK CHEVILLOT

INGREDIENTS
Butter
fillets of beef
shallots
red Burgundy
flour
marrow bones (optional)

‘The French prefer their steaks small and sautéed in a rather than large and broiled as we usually prepare them here. For four people or fewer this steak, Chef Chevillot prepares and we find it a perfect chafing dish recipe’ VINCENT PRICE

STEAK
In skillet heat: 1 tablespoon butter and in it cook over high heat 4 fillets of beef, each 1 ½ inches thick, for about 4 minutes on each side, or until browned and done to taste. Remove fillets to warm serving platter and keep warm. Drain fat from skillet and return skillet to moderate heat.

SAUCE
1) Add: ½ tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon minced shallots and cook for 30 seconds.

2) Add: ½ cup Burgundy and cook until wine is reduced to about half its quantity.

3) Stir in: 1 teaspoon flour and mixed to a smooth paste with 1 teaspoon butter and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds.

4) Swirl in: 1 tablespoon butter and when butter is melted, add: 2 tablespoons Burgundy.

PRESENTATION
Spoon 2 tablespoons of the sauce over each fillet, and serve immediately. If desired, top each fillet with a slice of poached beef marrow.

MY VERDICT
Four easy steps to steak heaven. And here’s the result…

Steak Chevillot

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The Whitehall Club’s Steak Diane | The 1970s classic that needs no reinvention

The Whitehall Club, ChicagoMy latest adventure trying out the steak recipes in Vincent and Mary Price’s A Treasury of Great Recipes led me to a 1970s classic, Steak Diane, and this one comes from Chicago’s The Whitehall Club.

A Treasury of Great Recipes‘Chicago has been a long time living down the label pinned on it by Carl Sandburg-“Hog Butcher for the World.” The stockyards aren’t what they used to be, but meats and steaks are still superlative in this town, and a new dimension has been added gastronomically. There are now many wonderful restaurants here with fantastically varied cuisines, a few of them so popular that they have become private clubs in order to limit the crowds The best, I would say, is The Whitehall Club, one of the few American taurants ever mentioned in that Who’s Who of French gastron Guide Michelin. Elegantly paneled, and decorated with an antique wallpaper like the one used in Sacher’s in Vienna, the room manages to seem private and intimate even when it is jammed. The host-owners are the Keller brothers, Sidney and Will, men of many enterprises, but with none so close to their hearts as this excellent eating club. They and their staff not only love good food, they love sharing its secrets with other interested gastronomes Aside from some marvelous recipes, the Whitehall staff also gave me a few good cooking tips, which I happily pass on to you. Their chef’s big secret is to use shallots in everything requiring garlic or onion, except for salad. Don’t overdo any flavor use herbs and spices sparingly to let the flavor of the original food come through. And don’t overcook or again you will lose the flavor of the original Their recipe for good co Two cups care, one heaping teaspoonful of imagination and generous dashes of subtle Result? Some of the most delicious food we’ve ever eaten anywhere.’ VINCENT PRICE

Steak DianeSteak Diane

INGREDIENTS
sirloin steaks
butter
shallots
Worcestershire sauce
salt, pepper
parsley

‘Usually in Chicago you are brought enormous, thick steaks that all but come to the table wearing the blue ribbon of the steer that they were part of. So for a change it was pleasant to be served a steak that had been pounded thin and was cooked quickly at the table in a chafing dish. The Whitehall Club’s maitre d’hôtel did the steaks and their sauce so deftly and rapidly, I couldn’t wait to get home and try it myself. It really does go 1-2-3, and tastes marvelous.’ VINCENT PRICE

1 Put: 4 sirloin steaks, each about 6 ounces, between pieces of waxed paper and pound to a 1/3-inch thickness.

2 Heat in small saucepan: 2 tablespoons butter.

3 Add: 4 tablespoons finely chopped shallots and cook until shallots are lightly browned. Add: 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce and heat to bubbling. Keep the sauce hot.

4 Heat in 12-inch skillet or chafing dish: 6 tablespoons butter. When it begins to brown, add steaks and cook for 3 minutes. Turn and cook for 2 to 3 minutes longer, or until done to taste. Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle with salt and a generous amount of freshly ground pepper.

PRESENTATION
Spread the shallot sauce over the steaks and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

MY VERDICT
Again, this is a very simple dish and one you can master after a few tries, but it does require a good cut of beef, like a fillet. I tried it with rib eye and it came out chewy the first time. Also, you need to get the balance right with the Worcestershire and butter, as it can come out a tad vinegary. Oh, and the perfect song for this dish just has to be Fleetwood Mac’s Oh, Diane:

Steak Diane

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Steak Moutarde Flambé | A true classic from Copenhagen’s famed Belle Terrasse

Belle Terrasse TivoliA juicy steak is one of life’s greatest pleasures (unless you’re vegan – and there’s nothing wrong with being vegan). But it’s also a bugger to get right. My mother (bless her) always turned them into leather straps or stewed them to bland tastelessness, so I’m always looking for the perfect steak recipe: and one that honours the meat.

So my challenge is to explore all of the steak recipes in Vincent and Mary Price’s acclaimed tome, A Treasury of Great Recipes. There are 10, but I won’t be trying the three Tartar ones as they are far to rare for me. This recipe comes from the Belle Terrasse in Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens (alas now closed).

Belle Terrasse, Tivoli, CopenhagenSteak Moutarde Flambé
‘We are inclined to think that nowhere else in the world is there beef the equal of ours. But in Denmark the beef raised on their rich farm and grazing lands is superlative, their dairy products without peer. In this recipe, rich Danish beef is prepared with a mustard sauce that utilizes the thick, heavy cream-both sweet and sour-for which the country is famous. By flaming the beef with cognac, all of the juices and flavorings are sealed into the meat, and all the wonderful brownings in the pan are loosened to become part of the sauce. At Belle Terrasse these steaks were served with French fried potatoes and a cool, crisp salad. An unbeatable combination.’ VINCENT PRICE

Ingredients
beef fillet
butter
salt, pepper
rosemary
sage
cognac
Dijon mustard
mild mustard
sour cream
cream
rose paprika

1) In skillet heat: 1 tablespoon butter, saute over high heat: 4 fillets of beef, 1/2 inches thick, for 4 minutes. Turn and sprinkle with: salt, coarsely sage ground pepper, 1/4 teaspoon rosemary and 1/2 teaspoon crumbled sage leaves. Cook to desired degree of doneness (4 to 5 minutes per side for rare).

2) Pour off excess fat from pan and cream sprinkle fillets with: 1/4 cup cognac. Ignite the cognac and when the flame burns out, transfer fillets to a warm serving platter and keep warm.

3) To skillet add: 4 teaspoons Dijon mustard, 4 teaspoons mild brown or
herb-flavored mustard, and 1/4 teaspoon rose paprika. Combine: 2 tablespoons commercial sour cream and 1/2 cup cream and stir into mustard in skillet. Cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Pour the sauce over the fillets and serve.

Steak Moutarde Flambé

MY VERDICT
Simply delicious: and I think it’s the herbs that really lifts the dish; plus I love mustard so the sauce is a winner. I’ve also tried using just the sour cream, and replaced the cognac with the less expensive French Brandy, and works a treat. Oh, I just love the kitchen theatre ingniting the spirit. But watch out you don’t singe anything. There’s also that sense of satisfaction that you have just knocked up a restaurant-quality dish at a fraction of the price – but don’t scrimp on the beef. Get it organic and use the best cut: fillet.

Steak Moutarde FlambéSteak Moutarde FlambéSteak Moutarde Flambé

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