Recipe and photo courtesy of Tania Teschke | The Bordeaux Kitchen
The spider steak (araignée) is a flavorful, rare piece of beef often set aside by the butcher for his own consumption rather than sold to customers. Other such pieces, often reserved for the real meat connoisseur, are the merlan and poire, both from the sirloin (surlonge) or “topside.” The reason the spider steak is often kept by the butcher is because the piece is replete with nerve tissue, forming a kind of spider’s web through the muscle that gives the piece it’s name. The extra effort required to remove the fibers makes it too expensive to be worth the trouble to sell. Spider steak comes from the hip joint.
Fortunately, this recipe is equally delicious with various cuts of beef steak.
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 15 minutes
Serves: 1 – 2
US Wellness Meats Shopping List: Choice Cut of Steak, Duck Fat, Butter
Ingredients
For the Orange Sauce:
- Zest of half an orange
- Juice of one orange
- Pinch of sea salt
- 1 Tbsp duck fat
- 3 shallots, finely chopped
For the Steak:
- Fine salt and pepper for seasoning the steak
- 11 ounces spider steak (or favorite beef steak cut)
- 2 Tbsp Butter
Recipe and photo courtesy of Tania Teschke | The Bordeaux Kitchen
Instructions
- Place the ingredients for the orange sauce into a small saucepan, and allow to reduce for several minutes on medium-low heat.
- Meanwhile, melt the duck fat in a pan over medium heat, add the salt, and brown the shallots for several minutes.
- Scrape the shallots out of the pan and mix into the orange sauce in the small saucepan. Keep the sauce warm on low until the steak is ready.
- Salt and pepper the steak. Allow the butter to melt in the same pan used for the shallots on high heat.
- As the butter begins to turn slightly caramel colored (noisette), add the steak.
- Sear each side for two to three minutes, drizzling (arroser) the butter sauce over the steak. Turn the heat down to medium-high, and flip the steak over a few times to cook through for a few more minutes, if desired, while you continue to drizzle the butter sauce over the steak.
- Remove the steak from the pan and top with half of the orange shallot sauce, putting the other half in a small ramekin or dish for dipping.
Meet The Chef
Tania Teschke previously lived in Bordeaux, France, where she studied French cooking, butchery with an award-winning French butcher, and she earned a diploma in wine tasting from the University of Bordeaux. Having faced numerous health issues over more than two decades, Tania is passionate about healing herself, feeding her family nutritious meals and sharing what she has learned with others. Her book of ancestral French recipes, published by Primal Blueprint, is called The Bordeaux Kitchen. Find more of Tania’s recipes and adventures at: Food Blog | Twitter | Instagram | Photography Blog