Steak and Mushrooms with Awesome Sauce

In addition to the great guest posts he does for Food Junta, Chris is a music journalist, writer, photographer, and Rolling Stone Intern. You can read his music writing over at The Stu Reid Experiment or keep up with all his escapades by following him on Twitter.

A good friend of mine recently made the trek down to New York City, and a few of us decided to celebrate with a nice home-cooked meal. “What better thing to celebrate with,” we said to ourselves, “than steak?” The answer to this question (of course) is nothing. Nothing is better to celebrate with than steak.

Unless you count steak with mushrooms. I’m of the general belief that mushrooms improve any savory dish, and we happened to have some leftover mushrooms from a salad earlier in the week. Thus an attack strategy was formed:

1. Find steak and mushroom recipe.
2. Cook steak and mushroom recipe.
3. Eat steak and mushroom recipe.

Well, I guess step three was to eat the dish, not the recipe. But I like the way that sentence looks.

After some hunting online I settled on a recipe from Bon Appetit:

Steak:

2 sixteen ounce rib eye steaks, about 1 1/2 inches thick. I ended up cooking 6 steaks, but I’ll keep the recipe at this level to keep everyone’s math sharp.

Coarsely cracked black peppercorns

Dried rosemary

Mushroom Saute:

3 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

3/4 teaspoon dried rosemary

5 ounces fresh whole oyster mushrooms, trimmed

5 ounces fresh whole shiitake mushrooms, stems trimmed

2 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar or red wine vinegar

Awesome Sauce (My name, not Bon Apetit’s):

1/4 cup canned beef broth

I started by rubbing the steaks with the peppercorns and rosemary and letting them sit for a little bit. I don’t think the sitting accomplishes anything other than making you really really want steak. I substituted fresh rosemary for dried and used more than the amount called for, which certainly looked nicer on the plate, as you can see below:

The entire dish is fairly simple to cook. For the mushrooms, combine garlic, rosemary, and olive oil and sauté over medium-high heat for about half a minute before tossing in the mushrooms. Cook the mushrooms for 3 minutes or until they start to soften up and then add the balsamic vinegar. Throw in some salt and pepper and the fungi are ready to party.

Meanwhile, in a heavy iron skillet, put about a tablespoon and a half of oil (for every two steaks) over high heat. Cook the steaks for 2 minutes per side, letting them brown. After the outside has browned, turn the heat down to medium-high and cook for another 2-3 minutes on each side, depending on how thick the steaks are and how rare you like them. Before you know it, the steaks are done!

BUT WAIT! There’s more!

Whatever you do, do not slice the steaks immediately. Think of the juices, people! Check out this fascinating article for how to keep the delicious juiciness in your steaks simply by waiting five minutes before digging in. Or take my word for it, if you don’t want to read. Just wait a couple ticks and know that you’re making a wise decision.

Here’s something to keep you busy while you’re waiting: Awesome Sauce. In the pan in which you just cooked your rib-eyes, there will be deliciously meaty scraps, just itching for a second lease on life. Crack open a can of beef broth, and pour ¼ or ½ cup into that pan. Let it heat, stirring and scraping until it has reduced to a succulent glaze. By the time it’s done and saucy, the steaks will be prime for the slicing.

Order them like this: steak, glaze, mushrooms. Consume. Celebrate heartily.