Dance After Dark Photography

It was steak & potatoes night. I marinated the steak overnight with rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, hot sauce, olive oil, salt, pepper, smoked paprika, cumin, and ginger. Next time I’ll probably throw in some lime juice, too. I let it sit for 30 minutes on the counter prior to cooking so it would reach room temperature, and then I liberally sprinkled each steak with kosher salt before slapping them down in a large saucepan over high heat. Let ‘em sizzle undisturbed for 4-5 minutes, sprinkle the raw side with more salt, and flip. Another 4 minutes, and then they go in a 350º oven for about 5 minutes. These steaks were almost an inch thick, so 5 minutes is medium. 9-10 minutes for well done. I did a damn good job on the steaks, if I do say so myself. ‘Course, I didn’t have to because everyone else said it first.

The mashed potatoes were good, too. Mom did most of the work, peeling and boiling the potatoes. She boiled them with garlic powder and the ubiquitous salt. I mash them with more salt, pepper, butter, sour cream and (usually) milk. I had some heavy cream on hand, so that’s what I used in place of the milk this time. I added a few tablespoons of beef broth (see below), and I also used the last of my roasted garlic — about 3 cloves worth. It could have used more.

In the saucepan, I sauteed mushrooms with salt over the same medium-high heat, getting up all the brown bits from the steaks and rendering out a lot of the mushrooms’ own liquid before I added any oil. A little olive oil came about 5 minutes later, when the mushrooms’ liquid was almost evaporated, and it was followed shortly thereafter by half a can of beef broth. Add thyme, more paprika, pepper, and ground ancho chilies. At this point I should have remembered to add in the broccoli so it could steam above the almost-done mushrooms, but I’d entirely forgotten it and left it in the fridge.

Pulled it all together with a gravy made from a few teaspoons of flour made into a slurry with the remaining beef broth. Stirred that in, brought to a boil to thicken, stirred to coat the veggies, and set aside while I retrieved the steaks from their resting plate. To serve I dropped a dollop of potatoes on each plate, followed by the steak. Both were drizzled with veggies & gravy, and then more veggies were piled off to the side. Very pretty, although it would’ve been made better with a few diced green onions. Now I think of that.

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