You may have heard of the latest thing in steak—old cow. This beef from northern Spain has become the must-order dish in top London restaurants and won endless praise. Nigel Slater raved about the Galician beef he was served at Kitty Fisher’s in Mayfair: ‘Awesome, totally awesome,’ was his view. The unusual thing about this beef is its age—up to 10 years—and the fact that it has lived its life as a dairy cow before being retired to pastures new, where it has lazed about in a rather contented manner, and become fat and soft. So our great new bone-in sirloin steak revels in the unlikely soubriquet of ‘old cow’—it is tender, though not fork tender, and it has mind-blowing flavour, deeper than anything we have tasted. The extra fat these cows acquire produces a wonderful intra-muscular marbling and dark red meat with an intense, almost smoky flavour, rather like a good oak-aged claret.
Four x 260g steaks. RRP £66. CCUK £47.
