Summer lunch

I grilled a steak for lunch today with caper sauce and a lettuce salad. It felt so luxurious, but was so simple and delicious. In principle I don't eat a lot of meat, but a good rare steak is better than almost anything.

The best cooking trick I ever learned is how to check if meat is done without cutting into it. The trick is to learn how to judge the meat be feel, by gently pressing it with your finger or a utensil. If it's raw, it's squishy, and if it's medium-well done, it feels like pushing on a mattress. Rare meat has a feel somewhere in-between. Another way to think of the texture is to compare it to the fleshy bit between your thumb and first finger. When your hand is held loosely, that spot is soft, like raw meat. In a loose fist, your hand will feel like rare-medium, and a tight fist will show you what well done meat feels like. I've had good luck with this technique with every kind of meat, from chicken breasts to pork roasts and steaks.

The caper sauce is easy as anything. Saute a quarter or half an onion, chopped, in butter and olive oil until it is lightly browned. Add a few spoons of capers (I like lots) and a big splash of red wine and let it putter for a few minutes. I also added fresh thyme from my garden. The sauce is fast, but make sure to start chopping the onions and getting your ingredients out before you put the steak on the grill, since it won't take very long to cook, if you like it rare. You can also pan-fry the steak, just let the onions cook for a minute or two and then put the steak in with them. Extra steak flavour in the sauce is always good.

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