Not my actual kitchen!

Last night’s dinner was a reminder that even after years of cooking, and years of raising good beef cattle, it’s still possible to get it wrong.

The meal itself was simple enough: steak with creamy mashed potato and asparagus, blanched and finished with butter and a squeeze of lemon juice. The mash was exactly as I wanted it. The asparagus was bright, fresh and probably the best thing on the plate.

The steak, unfortunately, was another story.

I bought it from the supermarket and, to be honest, it just wasn’t a particularly good piece of beef. Years ago I farmed Belted Galloway cattle, and that experience probably spoiled me forever. Good beef has a depth of flavour and texture that’s difficult to describe until you’ve experienced it. Once you have, you notice when it’s missing.

But I can’t blame the supermarket for everything.

Before cooking I seasoned the steaks with salt. Normally I’d brush the excess off before they went into the pan, but this time I forgot. The result was a steak that was simply too salty. Worse still, the salt completely overwhelmed the pepper sauce I’d made to accompany it.

The disappointment wasn’t enough to stop us eating dinner.

Around here, food gets eaten. It would have to be truly awful before I’d scrape it into the bin. The meal wasn’t what I’d hoped for, but it was still perfectly edible, and wasting it would have been a far bigger disappointment than over-salting a steak.

As I sat there, another thought crossed my mind. I wondered whether I could have done something with the persimmons sitting on the bench. By then it was far too late to rethink the meal, but it planted a seed. Perhaps they’ll find their way into another dinner sometime soon.

If there was a lesson in the evening, it wasn’t really about steak at all.

Good cooking starts with good ingredients, but it doesn’t end there. Even the best ingredients can be let down by one small lapse in attention. Equally, simple things—like buttery mash and asparagus with lemon—can quietly remind you that good cooking doesn’t have to be complicated.

Sometimes the meal doesn’t quite work.

You accept it, learn from it, and cook another one tomorrow.