The Magic Marinade

Click on the photo above for my soy-miso bavette recipe.

I began my sous vide journey with a lot of research, and like many other home chefs started with some simple steak recipes. These recipes promised a ‘restaurant standard’ fantasy that seemed to be so entrenched in the sous vide brand.

At first, the joy of having perfect pink, medium-rare steak was enough to convince me that the sous vide was worth the money & time spent. However, whilst dining out at one of my all time favourite London restaurants - The Modern Pantry - I realised that the steak I was making at home was NOTHING compared to the beautifully rich, intensely flavourful steak I was enjoying there. It was a ‘Tamarind & Miso Onglet Steak’ - which has been on the MP menu for as long as I can recall.

I reassessed the recipes I had been using - most of which called for something along the lines of a couple of cloves of garlic and a sprig of rosemary. They seemed soo conservative. For some reason there was such tendency to be so focused on the time/temp element of the cook that the flavour was secondary. I have since discovered that the marinade is so so important. Forget that little bit of rosemary & garlic - think big, think bold.

I took inspiration from my Modern Pantry meal and developed this soy-miso bavette. Bavette is a similar cut to onglet but slightly more accessible if you don’t have a local butcher. It is also very cheap and incredibly flavourful after a 4 hour sous vide in an umami-rich marinade. Also, if you can make it ahead to finish on a bbq then DO. Seriously.