6 Little Changes Will Make a Big Difference For Dinner
For or against fine dining
Before this dilemma, there is that question how to create fine dining dinner ideas? But we’ll solve that along the way as well 🙂
Once upon a time, fine dining was a bugbear with gigantic mouth for me, too, giving me big plates and tiny portions – all for my hungry eyes and lots of money, of course.
components
- 1 kg of beef steak
- 1l beetroot juice
- nettle bunch
- basil bunch
- 30 ml olive oil for pesto + 120 gr of olive oil for crispy plates
- 5 gr of parmesan
- 5ml of balsamic vinegar
- 500 gr potatoes
- 25 gr butter+ 30 gr to coat the beef steak
- 50-70 ml of cooking cream
- 1 bag of squid ink
- 30 gr of flour
- 50 ml beetroot juice
- 300 gr of clear soup
- salt, pepper to your taste
- gravy + cooking cream to your taste
Instruction
- Take the beef steak out of the fridge an hour before cooking. Salt well and tie with a kitchen twine so that it is equally thick everywhere. Leave at room temperature salted for at least an hour.
- Heat up the oven at 150°C.
- Peel off the potatoes and cook for mashed potatoes. Once cooked and soft enough to mash, strain them, add 25 gr of butter and cooking cream and make mashed potatoes. Once it's done, add a bag of squid ink.
- Strain the beetroot juice and pour it into a pot. Add 5 ml of balsamic vinegar and cook, that is, reduce until you get the right thickness and texture (at least half of the original quantity). Once it's reduced, leave it aside to cool.
- Make pesto by mixing nettle and basil, 30 ml of olive oil and parmesan. Mix it all in a blender until you get a smooth texture.
- Make gravy sauce out of beef - you can find the link to the recipe in the text. To dilute the gravy sauce, add cooking cream to your taste and your desired final texture. The more you put cooking cream in, the thinner and milkier the gravy.
- Put the meat into the oven and bake until its inside part reaches the temperature of 45-50°C. Turn the beef steak in the oven at least once during baking.
- Once the inside of the beef steak reaches the temperature of 45°C, take the beef steak out of the oven and bake on each side in a hot pan for a total of 4-6 minutes. Once it's done, pour melted butter over it and leave aside to rest for a minimum of 10 minutes.
- Make the crispy plate by mixing 30 gr of flour, 120 gr of olive oil, 300 gr of clear soup, 50 ml of beetroot juice and a pinch of salt. The mixture must be compact. Bake the plate at medium temperature until it gets crispy, that is, until all the water evaporates. Then take it out of the teflon pan and put it on a paper towel which will soak up the excess greasiness.
- You can put all these side dishes in a pastry bag or a plastic pipette of the right size and decorate the plate as you like it.
- Once the meat is rested, cut it in slices 7 mm thick.
- NOTE: All other details on how you can make this dish are in the text of the post.
However, for the past year, I was able to learn, work and enjoy the flavours of top French fine dining restaurants with one, two or three Michelin stars.
I scared away the bugbear in the end and started to present and experience my food in a completely different way.
What I would now like to teach you as well is that with a little bit of imagination and goodwill, you can easily make home fine dining for yourself …
And here’s how…
Fine dining dinner ideas?
For the first recipe, we will start with the ingredients that are affordable for everyone: potatoes, beetroot, nettle, basil, beef steak (or some other piece of meat), olive oil…..Besides all that, I will teach you some catches as well 🙂
How to bake a beef steak fine dining?
It really is a challenge to get a crust on the outside, and softness and juiciness on the inside of the steak.
For a four-member family, you need approximately 250 gr of meat each, with additional side dishes. So, in this case, you need a 1 kg beef steak.
If you find beef steak for dinner too strong, you can substitute it for some other type of meat.
Now lets get back to the topic…
Since beef steak is not equally thick, or at least your piece is like that, then the best thing to do is to use twine.
But, before you start tying the steak with a kitchen twine to make it equally thick, you should dry it with a paper towel. Then, salt it well and leave it be for 1h at room temperature so that the salt can sink deep into the meat.
I suggest two options on how to bake a beef steak (larger pieces of meat)
- first, the beefsteak goes into the oven, and then into a pan
- or the beef steak should first get a crust in the pan, and then the inside should be cooked a little bit in the oven
My chosen option this time was the first one.
Heat up the oven at 150°C.
We have already salted the steak, but before putting it in the oven, we can optionally coat its surface with butter.
We bake it in the oven until the inside of the meat reaches the temperature of 45-50°C for rare to medium rare (this is fine dining recipe- the number 1 option in the world – everything else is considered overdone for a beef steak). The temperature of meat can be measured with a kitchen meat thermometer. This temperature is reached after about 30-45 minutes of baking (this depends on the oven, and you shouldn’t rely that much on time, but rather on temperature).
During baking, you should turn the beef steak over at least once so that both sides are equally done.
And now the pan…
Heat up the pan so that it is really hot, almost foaming, bake the beef steak on all sides for 4-6 minutes in total (based on the experience with your stove).
Take the meat out of the pan, coat with two spoons of butter and leave it be for 10 – 15 minutes.
What if I have a smaller piece of meat? Can it be still fine dining?
Of course, this is the best fine dining dinner ideas 🙂
Fry it only in the pan on both sides for 2-3 minutes at high temperature. Then, leave it aside for 5 minutes to rest before serving and cutting.
Meat cutting
Cut the meat only after rested, in slices 7 mm thick and serve.
How to make a crispy tile (tuile-french word)?
You can make it out of flour, olive oil, clear beef soup (you can use soup cube if you don’t have other ones), beetroot juice (this is optional, you can substitute it with some other flavour) and salt.
Mix all these ingredients with a hand blender and pour into a mould (or no mould) in a teflon pan, and bake at low to medium temperature.
With a mould
Without a mould
This is what it should look like once it’s done which you will figure out when it stops sizzling in the pan, that is, when all the water evaporates.
Keep in mind that for lunch or dinner your dish should have some kind of a crispy touch.
How to make a beetroot reduction?
You can substitute the beetroot juice with any other type of juice: carrot, apple, pear…this is also one of good fine dining ideas 🙂
The point is to squeeze the fruit or vegetables in the juicer or just buy an adequate juice.
When you get the juice (1l), pour it into a pot and warm it up, that is, cook until you get a certain texture and density. The longer you cook it, the more the water will evaporate, and the content will be denser and stickier.
You can add a bit of balsamic vinegar (5ml).
I needed a thicker alternative for this recipe so I reduced it for quite a while.
How did my mashed potatoes turn black?
It’s very simple…and something that’s often prepared in France in its thicker or thinner alternative. Looks amazing but very cheap fine dining dinner ideas 🙂
Cook potatoes in water, add butter, salt, cooking cream and squid ink (I bought it in Maxi). You can make it either thick as mashed potatoes or a bit thinner, like a sauce. You can achieve this by adding more cooking cream.
I put potatoes in a pastry bag with a rustic tip.
Now we’re done with potatoes, too 🙂
What is this small green thing hanging around on my plate?
It’s a basil, nettle, salt, pepper, olive oil pesto with a bit of parmesan cheese. The texture should be smooth and uniform, that is, the herbs must be ground up very well.
The final touch on the plate is…
Gravy, and you can find the recipe here…Sorry my French…this is very very best for fine dining dinner ideas.
Does my cuisine have its alternatives?
Of course, there are always alternatives…As we already said for the beef steak, you can substitute it for chicken or some other type of meat. The mashed potatoes can be left uncoloured or you can give them some other colour. For example, if you have dried beetroot (you can buy it in the supermarket), make a powder out of it and mix it with mashed potatoes…You can also use some other dried vegetables instead of beetroot, or even algae.
You can use basil to make green pesto…or chard, it doesn’t matter…
What I made the very next day out of the groceries I had left was this: potatoes with chard and dried vegetables (beetroot, parnsnip and carrot), beef steak and a crispy beetroot plate.
Everything’s the same, but different 🙂
We figured out what to make for dinner, all that’s left is what to do with the quantities. Of course, it’s up to you to decide how much you will prepare. I suggest a smaller portion for the main course, so that you can enjoy an appetizer, soup or a dessert 🙂
SHARING IS CARING 🙂
