TWO BULLS
STEAKHOUSE
A REAL CHARCOAL GRILL
D
espite being one of the nation’s favourites and the most expensive thing on the menu, steak can be hit and miss when eaten out, and a bugger to get right at home.
This booklet will explain a few basics about steak and give tips on how to cook steak & chips. There’s a clue on the cover to where you should casually book a table for a perfectly charcoal grilled steak, but for those who like cooking at home we’ve included some recipes and pictures of what we do at the Two Bulls in the hope that we will tempt you in for a meal. The Two Bulls isn’t a posh restaurant, in fact it’s a bit spit and sawdust. We serve homemade, rustic, simple food with strong natural flavours in a friendly dining room where the menu never changes except for maybe a few seasonal lobsters.
Book a table today • www.twobulls.co.uk / 01424 436443
PREFACE
“When it’s done properly, steak & chips is a fantastic meal. It hits the spot and satisfies that deep carnal desire like nothing else.”
HOW TO
...Prepare a 70s Prawn Cocktail Marie Rose sauce (with a bit of umph!) Ingredients: 1 cup real mayonnaise (Hellmann’s will do fine) 1 good squirt of ketchup 1 dash Worcester sauce a good pinch of sweet smoked paprika 1/2 teaspoon of Chinese chili paste in oil (Kings Rd).
Stir together with a fork and adjust to your own taste. Prawn Cocktail To prepare the classic 70’s steakhouse prawn cocktail, North Atlantic cold water prawns are ideal but you should use whatever kind of prawn takes your fancy. Stir your handful of prawns into the Marie Rose sauce and spoon them onto a bed of rocket or shredded iceberg tossed in honey & toasted sesame oil dressing with a wedge of fresh lemon to squeeze at the last minute. You may prefer to get some thumping great Indian Ocean tiger prawns to dip into a bowl of your sauce and just forget the salad.
Book a table today • www.twobulls.co.uk / 01424 436443
AGED BEEF
“When a beast is slaughtered, for reasons of economy, there’s a rush to get it butchered, vacuum packed and onto your plate as soon as possible. Your steak is often oozing blood and lacking any actual beefy flavour because it’s quite simply too fresh.”
B
ack in the day when you’d see whole quarters of beef being heaved on the shoulder of your local butcher, there would be upwards of four weeks between slaughter and fork.
Beef is unlike other meats and for the very best steak you need to leave whole beef loins and fore ribs to age on the bone until the ends blacken in a climate controlled chiller for several weeks or more. You’ll see this in our display fridges at the restaurant where our own 45 day aged T bones, sirloins and rib eye are matured before butchering. All of our steak at The Two Bulls is properly aged before grilling over real charcoal. Properly aged beef needs to mature like a clothed wheel of vintage cheddar and it won’t spoil if this is done right. As the joint air dries the beefy flavours become more concentrated while natural enzymes tenderise the flesh. There’s a lot of waste due to moisture loss and excessive trimming which makes our dearest cut of beef even dearer but this is a tasty reward after all.
Book a table today • www.twobulls.co.uk 01424 436443
HOW TO
...Cook a Steak Properly “To grill a steak properly you need to understand that there are two entirely separate stages. One, grilling and colouring the surface. Two, warming it through to the required doneness.” STAGE 1:
Grilling and colouring the surface of your steak
H
owever well-done you like your steak, you must first do a rare steak and you must colour the surface well because that’s where the strongest flavours come from.
When the heat hits the flesh, a myriad of complex chemical reactions occur on the sizzling surface. Salty edges crisp and caramelise as moisture is forced out leaving a layer of grilled meat flavour. This is called The Maillard reaction and for the first stage... it is absolutely everything. Think of that sneaky first slice of a joint of roasted beef and you’ll understand. Once you have your nicely coloured rare steak, take it away from the fire to somewhere relatively cool (anywhere below 50 0C to hold and stall the cooking) on the grill or onto a rack in a tray in a warm oven. You don’t have to do the second stage immediately if you’re not ready or in no hurry.
Book a table today • www.twobulls.co.uk 01424 436443
HOW TO
...Cook a Steak Properly “A beautifully grilled rare steak, warmed through slowly at 65C will become a perfectly succulent, medium rare one by the time you’ve finished your prawn cocktail and told a tall story.” STAGE 2:
Warming your steak to the required ‘doneness’
Y
our steak is now away from the fire so we need to get it done to your liking. Rare or well-done are quite easy if you think about it, but medium-rare or medium are a little harder to get
right.
Either at a cooler part of the grill or in a pre-warmed oven you just need to warm it through until it is done to your liking. Take it slowly, giving yourself time to adjust your hair and get the place organised for dinner. If you have your chips ready to drop into the hot oil and your salad nicely tossed then as long as you have your oven warmed you can enjoy cooking this meal and sit down to eat in a relaxed frame of mind. Alternatively give us a buzz, book a table and we’ll do all of this and wash up for you too.
Book a table today • www.twobulls.co.uk 01424 436443
FROM THE CHARCOAL GRILL
HOW TO
...Twice Cooked Chips “To cook a chip that’s fluffy inside yet crispy outside, you need a Maris Piper or a King Edward and you need to cook it twice.”
T
he first fry, the blanche, is done slowly at around 1400C. This lower temperature cooks right through without overcooking the surface.
While the chips are being gently boiled in the hot vegetable oil they are releasing lots of steam and becoming dryer, especially on the surface. Once they are cooked through and drained, spread them out on a tray to cool off. You can do the second cook once they are cool, but if you leave that tray of blanched chips uncovered in the fridge for a day and night then you really are going to have nice, and crispy chips. It will also allow you more time to relax and actually enjoy cooking your steak meal. The second fry only takes a few minutes and is done at 1800C. Your chips are ready when they are golden and rustle when you lift and shake the basket.
Book a table today • www.twobulls.co.uk 01424 436443
LUNCHTIME SPECIALS
£8 Lunchtime Specials Thursday to Sunday.
A
proper lunch with no extra charges for sauces, chips or salad, leaving you ready to take on the afternoon. Steaks, homemade burgers, salmon Hollandaise, grilled halloumi, surf & turf skewers with garlic butter, and we also do a decent kids meal with ice cream for only £6 (£8 in the evenings).
Book a table today • www.twobulls.co.uk 01424 436443
SURF & TURF SKEWER
£8 STEAK LUNCH
CHEESEBURGER
A Burger with a Bit of Umph! Actually, if there is anything else that hits the spot and scratches that itch as well as a steak it has to be a real charcoal grilled cheeseburger.
W
e don’t add anything to our coarse ground steak mince but we do toast our buns and add a dollop of our homemade pink burger relish along with some Applewood smoked cheese and a fist full of wild rocket. All of our meals are served with a tray of ketchup, mayonnaise and mustards etc. so you can adjust your burger and slather your chips.
Book a table today • www.twobulls.co.uk 01424 436443
MEAL DEALS
Three Course Meal Deals
£50 Three course meal for two
with a bottle of wine or drinks of your choice. Thursday & Sunday evenings
£60 Three course meal for two
with a bottle of wine or drinks of your choice. Friday evenings
See all our meal deals at twobulls.co.uk
Book a table today • www.twobulls.co.uk 01424 436443
BOOKINGS & PARTIES
We are normally open from Thursday until Sunday for lunch and dinner but we also open for most bank holidays and special days like Valentine’s night. Online we have set menus for large group bookings which is helpful for keeping within the entire group’s budget or for a works meal where one person might have to pick up the tab. We are now taking bookings for Christmas parties and Christmas Day lunch.
STICKY RIBS
Book a table today • www.twobulls.co.uk 01424 436443
RIB EYE STEAK
PEANUT BANOFFEE PIE
“There are lots and lots of banoffee pie recipes out there and you may prefer to choose your own. This book is too small to take you through all the recipe stages of the Two Bulls banoffee pie but what we can tell you is how we make ours so special.”
W
e make our own toffee sauce by melting muscovado sugar in butter and cream so it’s more of a soft fudge than the standard Carnation toffee and we also toast salted peanuts in a hot skillet so that they are slightly burnt at the edges before we do anything.
From there we add some of the blended dark toasted nuts to our ground digestive butter base and when that’s cooled we slather it with our toffee. The next day we add a layer of crunchy peanut butter before building up the bananas and whipped cream. When that’s sliced and on the plate it’s just a matter of decorating with lashings of runny toffee sauce, a handful of toasted nuts and flakes of white and dark Belgian chocolate flakes.
Book a table today • www.twobulls.co.uk 01424 436443
TOASTED PEANUT BANOFFEE PIE
TWO BULLS
STEAKHOUSE
A REAL CHARCOAL GRILL
61C High Street, Hastings Old Town, TN34 3EJ 01424 436443 www.twobulls.co.uk Publication and photography media25.org