Gastro Tom: My Epic Trencher

Follow me on Twitter- @GastroTomBlog twitter.com/GastroTomBlog

After seeing this dish being prepared on Channel 4's new cookery and baking programme The Fabulous Baker Brothers, I just had to have a go at it myself. It was great to not have to stand over the cooker for ages after a long day, but still end with something thoroughly delicious.

The full recipe can be found here, but the method really isn't overly complicated. That's not the point of this dish- it's all about simple, gutsy flavours and letting the quality of your ingredients (especially the steak) speak for themselves.

You'll need a loaf, preferably sourdough to make the trencher base. A trencher, by the way, is the base of a loaf bread which is used as the plate. This dates back from medieval times, when it was normally stale bread which was merely for function and not flavour. The trencher would normally be given to the poor after the meal, but I suggest you eat the bread with this one; so make sure you pick a decent loaf. By the way, I would still thoroughly encourage giving to those less fortunate, it's just your donation might be better in money than your leftover baked goods.

You'll also need a hanger steak which gets it name because it is the muscle that hangs between the rib and the loin of the cow. It is actually made up of two v-shaped muscles with a thick piece of sinew running down the middle. Ask the butcher to remove this and butterfly it for you.

I got my meat from The Ginger Pig. All their meat comes from animals reared on their farms in Yorkshire. I was born and raised in Yorkshire so I'll always be partial to getting my meat from this company. Fortunately, on top of that, it is of the very highest standard, and that's coming from the son of a butcher.

Fry your well-seasoned steak for 2 minutes on each side. You really don't want to cook a cut like this any more or it will start to become tough. Definitely not one for people who like their steak well done. You want the pan really hot so that you get a really loud sizzle in the pan like on the video I took.

Add some butter right at the end of cooking and baste the steak with it and then put the steak onto your trencher. Wrap the whole thing in foil. Then chop up some mushrooms (I used portobello) and sauté in butter along with some chopped garlic. Prepare a salad of watercress, parsley and finely chopped shallot. Once the mushrooms are cooked deglaze the pan with sherry vinegar and add to the salad.

Now all you need to do is unwrap the steak which should be nicely rested and slice it. You'll notice that all the liquid that would normally end up on the plate has soaked into and flavoured the bread. Place it on the trencher and then top it with the salad and mushrooms. There you have it. Absolutely wonderful and pretty straightforward. This served two people when I did it but if you don't have big appetites, it could probably stretch to three.

As for the programme, I found it very entertaining and fun. The perfect companion to the new Heston Blumenthal programme which precedes it. One with very achievable recipes, the other ever-so-slightly more challenging. Both very rewarding and most importantly, very tasty. The two brothers are surely major food television personalities in the making.