Baked meatballs with sweet and salty glaze, flavoured with Korean barbecue-style seasoning. With old fashioned Ritz crackers to bulk out the beef mix!
Beef and shiitake mushroom fried rice is the best dish you can make with the smallest piece of beef fillet or sirloin. Make sure you use fridge cold rice for any fried rice dish.
Homemade beef burgers in Hokkaido milk buns. Burgers crown the list and I think the secret really is in that slice of gherkin that a burger should be topped with. Joking aside - good minced beef has lots of flavour and sometimes, but sometimes, it can beat an average steak for me.
Beef fillet stuffed with porcini mushroom duxelles: it's a keto Wellington or filet de boeuf sans croûte. Beef tenderloin opened up like an envelope, spread with mushroom filling and roasted beautifully pink.
Roasted bone marrow with salty, herby topping is the quintessence of umami. Marrow is ultra-nutritious and needs just 20 minutes’ roasting in a hot oven.
Beef brisket braised with onions, mushrooms and sweet wine. The choice of aromatics is free but I’ll say this particular selection made very good sauce.
Bulgogi, Korean marinated grilled beef wrapped in a lettuce leaf. This is the ultimate fast food: wholesome and no-carb and no-salt! And a fusion version: instead of loading the grilled meat into lettuce leaves, pack them into pitas, top with lettuce and sauce and you can have an Asian/Middle Eastern experience.
Burger wellingtons with mushrooms and shallots wrapped in puff pastry, an easy version of beef Wellington. It’s a fancy dish for dummies, it’s your Valentine’s Day dinner this year.
Carne asada, a Mexican dish of marinated, grilled and thinly sliced beef. The fact is, marinade cooks things. It imparts flavour all right but we sometimes forget that’s not its only role – it tenderises tougher cuts.
Sharing steak cooked in the oven on a cast iron pan, served with Roquefort butter. I can’t quite work out what makes this cooking method so effective but it is that.
Slow cooked chili con carne with beef and red and white beans. This is one hell of a contentious dish. First off, the name is wrong: purists call it just chili. Second, the provenience.
Jumbo pasta shells, conchiglioni, stuffed with ground beef and baked with mozzarella and parmesan. There are only so many things you can do with minced meat; and depending on whereabouts you are, the flavourings, additions and textures will change subject to available produce.
Cote de boeuf is a rib-eye steak on the bone, also known as tomahawk steak. This is a simple recipe for a sparingly seasoned, seared and roasted cote de boeuf, ideal for sharing.
Crispy ginger beef noodle stir fry with pickled radish is Tom Kerridge’s take on a takeaway-style ginger beef and it’s amazing. Skip noodles for a low carb version.
Filipino beef tapa with brown rice, sweet and sharp marinated beef strips, stir fried and served as part of a breakfast dish of tapsilog.
Korean beef tacos, probably the best street food fusion. Marinated and grilled steak in soft corn tortillas, with shredded salads and spiced mayo – that’s taste bliss.
Corn tortilla chip nachos with easy homemade beef chilli, sweetcorn and cheese. Homemade nachos are the perfect recipe for a crowd-pleasing supper or snack.
Perfect beef fillet steaks cooked medium rare, served with anchovy butter. How to cook a perfect steak? One: smoking hot pan. Two: meat at room temperature. Three: flip every 30 seconds!
Italian beef ragu; pasta sauce with beef and pork mince, soffrito and tomato sauce. The amount of about 3-4 tablespoons of the sauce per person gives the perfect balance between Italian sparsity and British overload.
Reverse seared ribeye steak served with umami flavoured compound butter. The perfect steak, cooked in reverse: first low temperature, then a blast of heat.
Wing rib or fore rib, beef roasted on the bone is the best, not least because it makes for glorious gravy. Cooking times: 20 minutes at 240C/475, and then 15 minutes per pound of weight at 190C/375. Internal temperature should read 60C/140F.
Roast sirloin of beef cooked at low temperature produces as fantastic result as sous-vide cooking. The caveat: abandon all hope if you don’t own a digital probe of some kind.
Best red wine braised short ribs of beef with plum sauce, sweet and tender, called Obama’s short ribs, after the dish served to Barack Obama in a Harlem restaurant.
Sizzling beef in black bean sauce: a spicy oriental stir-fry with tender beef strips and mixed vegetables. The Chinese have some truly weird and wonderful names for dishes.
Spicy seared bavette steak, seasoned with a dry rub of chilli flakes, oregano, garlic and a secret umami agent: dried mushroom powder.
Steak and ale pie with flaky homemade shortcrust pastry. Supremely flavourful, hitting all the right spots with the salty, the meaty and the earthy from the mushrooms
Steak salad: thickly sliced medium-rare sirloin atop a pile of grilled vegetables dressed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. A quick weeknight supper that tastes special.
Steak tartare with crispy capers should be served deconstructed, the diner mixing it to their taste. My secret to perfect tartare is three Cs: the cut, the chop and the crunch.
Rib-eye steak with green vegetables and blue cheese sauce. This is the easiest sauce for steak: simply toss cooked green vegetables in blue cheese until it melts.
Thai beef salad made with finely sliced seared bavette steak, aka flank or skirt steak. Perfectly flavoursome beef on a bed of crunchy vegetables, with classic Thai dressing makes a delightful dish.
Traditional lasagne with ragù sauce and white béchamel sauce, between four layers of dried pasta sheets. Make sure you make a batch for the freezer!