The story about this dish, allegedly, is that one fine day a wife in the North asked her husband to defrost a piece of steak for her in the oven. She was gone on a trip and wouldn’t be home until the next day when they wanted to eat it. Hubby duly put the frozen steak in the oven on low heat to defrost and then promptly forgot the whole thing. When the wife came home the next day, she probably spent a minute or so shouting at the hubby, then went about trying to save the now blackened piece of steak by whatever means her imagination could come up with. And so, a classic dish was born.

Here’s how you do it.

Day 1: Take a nice piece of steak, about 1-2 kilos. Beef works, the original I believe is elk. Put whatever you’re using in the freezer. Have a great day. Go to bed.

Day 2: Have another great day. In the evening take the steak from the freezer and put it on a wire shelf in your (cold) oven. Set the heat to max. 100°C . Set an alarm for 9-10 hours just in case. Go to bed.

Day 3: Take steak out of the oven. Don’t panic, it’s supposed to look like that. If you feel concerned about the low temperature (if you have a monster steak it may need another few hours) check with a thermometer – 65-68°C and you have nothing to worry about. Mrs J likes hers to be even a little less well done.

Enjoy a long breakfast. Then bring 2 litres of water, 2 dl of salt, 3 bay leaves, 4 tablespoons of crushed juniper berries, 4 tablespoons of sugar and 2 teaspoons of crushed black pepper to the boil.

Pour the hot liquid over the steak in a bowl. The liquid should cover the steak as much as possible.

Cover with cling film and put somewhere cool. Go do something else nice. After 4-5 hours remove the steak from the liquid and towel it fairly dry. When it’s time to eat cut in thin slices.

Serve with a nice gratin. Mustard sauce can be good with it too.

Some mistakes are worth repeating!