Griddled Steak and Cruchy Potatoes (by G)

As a reward for a job reasonably well done in 2014 I bought myself an expensive cast iron griddle pan. A proper one. This thing is so heavy that if you dropped it on your toe you would probably loose the whole leg.

My idea was to test it out on a big hunk of beef like a rib roast or something exciting like that. Disappointingly the largest piece of beef I could find was a vacuum packed Angus steak - I'm a bit suss on those though - they seem to always turn out to have a very weird texture.  The rest of the meat appeared gristly, at $40 a kilo.  In the end I just bought a rump steak, there is no way I could bring myself to shop around for meat on new years eve.

I was inspired to have potatoes by Biggs' blog on the 29th featuring Mike's roast potatoes. My potatoes were simply peeled and simmered in salty water until just about falling apart (not by design, I got distracted admiring my new griddle pan and forgot about them).  After letting the potatoes dry a little I coated them in dripping, sprinkled over some rosemary sprigs and oven roasted them.

To cook the meat I heated the griddle pan to screaming hot and dropped the pre-oiled and seasoned steak onto it.  The pan may have been a little too hot... despite having all the doors open and the extraction fan on high smoke soon overwhelmed the house and set off the fire alarm. Not the volume of smoke that can be dispersed with a cushion, there was so much smoke that I had to re-arrange the furniture to get the battery out of the smoke alarm. You're supposed to test the smoke alarms on new years eve so I saved myself that little chore.

I had honestly meant to have some other things with dinner - roasted tomatoes, a little baked sweet potato and such but I completely forgot about those things until I had started eating.