Sounds way too fancy huh? I was shuffling through the last few issues of Martha Stewart Living and found a few recipes that sounded good to me. I must have been feeling adventurous, or hungry, or maybe both.
For a friend's bachelorette party a couple of months ago I ate at a RESTAURANT called The Strip Club. It is an eating establishment where you stand over a flaming grill and cook your own steak: it is simply a very clever name. I ordered a teriyaki steak, while everyone else ordered kabobs. Theirs were done cooking in five minutes and I was left waiting for my thick hunk of beef to cook through. I eventually got impatient, took it off the grill, and realized that it was still very rare. Back onto the grill it went. When it was finally cooked through, it was wonderful. I've been thinking about it ever since. That is what has made me look twice at steak recipes.
Although the fancy French name might scare some people off, I must say that Steak Au Poivre was quite a simple recipe. I seasoned both sides of the NY strip steaks with kosher salt, coriander, and lots of fresh ground black pepper. (The recipe tries to fancy it up with 3 different types of peppercorns ground up with a mortar and pestle.) Then I put the steaks in some olive oil and cooked them for about 2 minutes on each side.
By this point they were spattering and smoking quite a bit. I put them in the oven and watched smoke rise up through one of the burners. I put a chair under the smoke alarm and opened the sliding door just in case. I have no idea what I'll do in the winter. I'll probably just let the smoke alarm go off.
They went in the oven to finish for 7 and a half minutes. The recipe said 6 for medium rare so I thought a minute and a half would get us up to medium/medium well. They ended up being well done... still edible, but I would have preferred a little pink.
Now for the balsamic reduction I kind of blew it. I was supposed to save the steak juices, then wipe out the pan. I just wiped out the pan. So when it was time to add the juices back in, I just added a little bit of water. The vinegar smell was very strong and had both Brett and I pretty wary of the sauce. You can see that when I plated my food, I made sure the sauce was well away from anything else.
Surprisingly, the sauce was pretty good. I ate my little spot of sauce and then went back for another spot. Even Brett liked it!
Maybe now steak will find its way to our table more than once ever 5 years:)
2 comments:
I have a problem with cooking steak indoors too for the exact same reason you mentioned: smoke. I think that's why I don't cook steak at home unless I BBQ it and because I'm almost certain to cook it wrong. But I'm curious to try out the recipe you posted, smoke and all.
I don't usually eat steak, but you just made it look really good! :)
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