Pipers Farm Steak and Orzotto

After ordering a meat box from Pipers Farm, our evening meals suddenly upgraded. With meat that good, the rest of the dish has to do it justice.

Alongside the biggest sausages I've ever seen, the meat box had a fantastic selection of seasonal, sustainable, local, slow-reared meat fit for any foodie (or body builder alike!) which all came packaged in natural lambs wool.

Tonight was the turn of two of the Ruby Red steaks, which K decided to cook with a Nigella-inspired orzotto and green beans. Nigella says: "An orzotto is like a risotto but instead of being made with rice it’s made with barley – orzo being the Italian for barley." That was a new one for me!

First, shallots were fried off in a pan with garlic oil and pearl barley was stirred through. Then chicken stock was added and some saffron and chopped green beans. This was all left to simmer.

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Once cooked down, dry vermouth and parmesan cheese were added to the mixture.

Now on to the steak. With a generous amount of butter and a sprig of thyme in the pan, the steaks were cooked to our liking - pink.

Once cooked, the orzotto was plated and the steak sliced and placed on top. 

The steak was absolutely delicious, really soft and full of flavour. The orzotto was an unexpected but welcome partner, tangy and chicken-y with the saffron coming through subtly.

We're now about half way through our first Pipers Farm meat box and the quality compared to supermarket meat, well, it doesn't compare, it's in a different ball park. And, with the stronger flavour and lack of added water, we're eating less of it too. I'd thoroughly recommend to anyone. 

As these are seasonal boxes and it wasn't quite time for lamb when ordered, with Spring now upon us, I feel we may be ordering our second box very soon indeed.....