HERE’S a dish to grace any special occasion. Madeira and mushroom sauce is simple to make – if you like you can always substitute the Madeira sauce for Port even though the flavour will be quite different.

When cooking any steak it is important that you cook it just how you or your friends like it. I have written a few tips below which will make it just perfect.

BEEF WITH MADEIRA, CREAM AND MUSHROOMS

Ingredients (serves 4)

4 fillet steaks about 200-250g a piece
Olive oil
20g butter
100g button mushrooms finely sliced
1 shallot finely chopped
Good dash of white wine about 100ml
50ml Madeira
100ml beef or chicken stock
150ml double cream
2 dsps freshly chopped parsley
Salt & pepper

Method

1. Cooking a steak is really not that difficult except there is always a difficulty in knowing just how long to cook a steak, guests or family may well require a different degree of cooking. There are a couple of factors which also make a difference, which cut or type of steak and more importantly how thick the steak is.

I have presumed that all the following will be about 2.5cm thick but this is very much a guideline, stick to the very first principle of cooking mainly on one side and you will rarely be disappointed.

Heat your griddle or frying pan to the highest temperature, smoking hot, before cooking the meat. Too many steaks in a pan will drop the heat and they will stew in their own juices.

Cook your steak mainly on one side only and flip the steak over when it is almost ready for eating.

Don’t add oil to the pan, lightly brush the steak on one side only, season with sea salt and freshly milled pepper and place it seasoning side down. Don’t fiddle or mess once it’s in the pan, leave it alone!

You can tell to what cooking degree it is at, if it is raw on top it’s because you have not flipped it over and it will become more and more well done on the bottom the longer you leave it.

To cook a well done steak, charred but still juicy, flip it over when the last millimetres of rawness are exposed, and not before otherwise it will just dry out. For a much rarer steak flip over earlier but again cook mainly on one side.

2. In a clean pan add the butter and mushrooms and cook for about 1 minute until golden before adding the shallots. Cook the shallots for 10- 15 seconds before adding the red wine.

3. Boil the wine until only a dessertspoon or so is left before adding the Madeira and bringing back to the boil.

4. Now add the beef stock, followed by the cream. Boil and thicken until it coats the back of a spoon, adding the parsley. Season with salt and pepper and spoon over the steaks.

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