How to Cook the Sides: Fries, Veggies, Sausages and Pasta Kits
Most steak dinners go wrong in the sides, not the steak. The beef is the fastest thing on the table, and if you start it before the mash is made and the fries are out, you will be resting a steak for fifteen minutes while everything else catches up.
This is the cooking method for every side and add-on we carry, plus the running order that gets it all to the table hot at the same time.
The running order
Work backwards from the steak, which is the last thing you cook:
1. 45 minutes out: thaw and temper the beef, and put the oven on if you are doing fries. 2. 25 minutes out: fries in the oven, sausages or frankfurters started in a pan or pot. 3. 10 minutes out: boil the kettle for the mash and the gravy. Pasta water on if you are doing a kit. 4. 5 minutes out: make the mash, make the gravy, keep both covered. 5. Zero: sear the steak. 6. While the steak rests: veggies straight into the steak pan. Deglaze for gravy if you want it made from the drippings.
That last step is the one worth building the whole plan around. The pan the steak came out of is the best cooking surface in your kitchen for the next two minutes, and almost everyone wastes it.
Cajun Fries, ₱99
200g, good for one or two. Oven is better than a pan: 200°C for 18 to 22 minutes, spread in a single layer on a tray, shaken once at the halfway mark. Do not thaw them first. Frozen fries going into a hot oven is exactly what they are designed for, and thawed ones go limp.
If you have an air fryer, 190°C for 12 to 15 minutes, shaken twice. If you are deep frying, 180°C for 3 to 4 minutes.
Crowding is the enemy. A 200g bag spread thin on a large tray crisps. The same bag piled in a small dish steams.
Mix Veggies, ₱79
250g, good for one or two. Cook these in the steak pan, immediately after the steak comes out and while it rests. There is rendered beef fat and fond in there, and it seasons the vegetables better than anything you would add deliberately.
Tip the frozen veggies straight into the hot pan, no thawing, no oil. High heat, 2 to 3 minutes, moving them constantly. You want them hot through and just starting to colour at the edges, still with some bite. Salt at the end.
Do not add butter or cream. The pan has already given them plenty of fat, and with a rich cut like Meltique the last thing the plate needs is more.
Hungarian Sausage, ₱349
500g, 5 pieces. These are best started gently and finished hot. Put them in a pan with a splash of water over medium heat, cover, and let them steam for 6 to 8 minutes, turning once. Then pour off the water, turn the heat up, and brown them for 3 to 4 minutes, rolling them so they colour all the way around.
The two-stage approach matters with a thick smoked sausage. Straight into a hot dry pan and the skin splits and the outside chars before the middle is properly hot.
Slice them on the diagonal before serving. On a shared table, five sausages sliced go further than five sausages whole.
Cheesy Frankfurters, ₱349
500g, 5 pieces. Same principle as the Hungarian, with one difference: the cheese inside wants to escape. Keep the heat lower and never pierce or score them. Gentle simmer in water for 5 to 6 minutes, then a quick 2 minutes in a dry pan for colour.
If you split one lengthwise for the grill marks, do it after cooking, not before. These are the reliable pick for kids at a family table while the adults work through the steak.
Idahoan Mashed Potato, ₱219
The instructions on the pack are correct, so follow them, but two things lift it. Use hot milk instead of water if you have it, and stir in a knob of butter and a pinch of salt at the end. Mix, then leave it covered for 2 minutes before serving. It thickens as it stands.
Make it 5 minutes before the steak goes in the pan and keep the lid on. It holds heat well and is one less thing to manage during the sear.
Beef & Herb Gravy Mix, ₱59
You can make this straight with hot water, and it is perfectly good. But the version worth making is the pan one: once the steak is out and resting, tip off excess fat, put the pan back on medium heat, add a splash of water or stock, and scrape everything stuck to the bottom loose with a wooden spoon. Then stir the gravy mix into that liquid.
Thirty seconds of scraping turns a ₱59 sachet into something that tastes like it came off the steak, because it did. Pour it over the mash rather than the steak so the crust stays crisp.
Creamy Truffle Pasta Kit, ₱239, and Creamy Pesto Pasta Kit, ₱249
Both are all-in-one: pasta and sauce in the box. Boil the pasta in well-salted water to the time on the pack, reserve half a cup of the cooking water before you drain, then return the pasta to the warm pot off the heat and stir the sauce through with a splash of that water. The starch in it is what makes the sauce cling instead of sliding off.
Do not cook the sauce hard. These are cream-based and they split if you boil them.
Truffle suits butter-aged beef, where the earthy note has something beefy to sit against. Pesto is the brighter one and the better choice if gravy is already on the table. Skip both alongside Meltique, which is rich enough on its own.
Special Homemade Wagyu Sauce, ₱89
120g, and no cooking required. Serve it at room temperature in a small bowl on the side, not poured over. It is built for the Saikoro cubes, yakiniku style, where everyone dips per piece. If it has been in the fridge, take it out when you start cooking so it is not fridge-cold on the table.
Heinz A.1. Original Sauce, ₱179
5 oz, straight from the bottle, on the side. Its job is acidity, and acidity works best against fat, so this is the one to put out with Meltique or a well-marbled ribeye. Do not warm it and do not cook with it.
Thyme Leaves, ₱79
13g dried. Add it to the pan in the last 30 seconds along with the butter, never at the start. Dried herbs burn fast at searing temperature and turn bitter. A pinch is enough for a whole pan.
Insulated bags, ₱20 and ₱25
Nothing to cook, but worth a line: if you are collecting an order or moving cuts between houses, these are what keep the cold chain intact. How we keep your steak cold covers the rest of it.
Putting it together
Once the sides are handled, the steak itself is the easy part. Pick the guide that matches your pack: ribeye for the half-inch cuts, thick-cut for the Giants, Meltique for the tallow-infused cuts, Saikoro cubes for the wagyu, and T-bone or porterhouse for the bone-in.
Sides and add-ons ship with your cuts in the same cold delivery, with no minimum order. Build your basket and we'll confirm the total before you pay, delivered across CALABARZON and Metro Manila.