Fair warning

  A quick break from herbs, spices and other flavours to point out that there are things I'm pretty relentless about. For example, I returned home after a long day at the coal face yesterday, covered in dust and quite drained and was presented with two organic rump steaks that had been thoughtfully procured by the management.

  She would have been overjoyed for them to take a quick spin in a frying pan and served up with some frozen peas, but like a man possessed, I flew into action. It's worth noting that as I did so, I was acutely aware of the flavours that got sucked into the maelstrom of activity and if my memory isn't its usual useless self, I'll be able to remember some of them...

  The broccoli and asparagus got salt and oil and a stint on the grill. The tomatoes got balsamic, salt, oil and parsley and some oven time. The cavalo nero got boiled then capers and butter. The steak's juices were mixed with butter and mustard. The jus was reduced red wine and stock. Maybe my memory is not so bad.

34 mins from start to finish.

  As you no doubt worked out, that picture shows what we tucked into. I'll be honest and admit that in the rush to get it all done, I slightly overcooked the steaks. They were still very edible and in a few days, hopefully I'll stop berating myself for such a rookie move. But enough gibbering about what I get up to in the kitchen, what do I want you to take from all of this? I suppose it's that I take for granted that all I have to do is apply heat to whatever ingredients I find and they are cooked and then all I have to do is reach for a bottle or packet of something and I've added enough flavour to pep it up. How hard can it be?

  The hard part is the confidence. I've done this so often that one Christmas, when I accidentally got so drunk I had to concentrate on standing up, I was still able to cook. This was a bit weird as I'm not a big drinker and managed to surprise myself with how wobbly I was while still being able to get the logistics right, (such as timing and flavours).

  In my experience, people are a lot better at cooking than they think they are. The simple truth is that when the thinking stops, a lot more cooking gets done but asking you to stop thinking is as fruitful as asking me to stop thinking so you should either do a lot more cooking to gain the sort of experience that enables you to cook without thinking or drink so much you're not able to think. (Editors note. Do not be drinking that much. Don't listen to this man, he's clearly an idiot. Or drunk. -Ed).

Kirk out

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