February 4, 2013 Dinner – Steak, Potatoes Savoyard, and Sugar Snap Peas

February 4, 2013 Dinner – Steak, Potatoes Savoyard, and Sugar Snap Peas

I did not know what to do for dinner, so at around 2:00 p.m. I took a rib eye steak out of the freezer and thawed it.

Suzette came home tired from lack of sleep last night at around 4:00.   I asked her if she wanted to go out to dinner for Chinese New Year and she said she wanted to lie down, so I rode my bike for 45 minutes and came home at 5:00.  When Suzette woke up she said she did not want to go out, so I said we have steak and she said, “Let’s do some mushrooms.”  And I said, “We have some raclette cheese and new potatoes, so let’s do potatoes a gratin Savoyard and sugar snap peas.”  So we had a simple menu.

I sliced eight baby portabella mushrooms, two shallots, and went to the cellar and fetched the bag of dried thyme picked in our garden last Fall and pulled about one Tbsp. of leaves off the stalks.

I then snapped the threads off about 1 cup of sugar snap peas.  Suzette shredded about 1 cup of raclette and some asadero cheese and sliced the 6 red medium potatoes in the Cuisinart.  She then layered the potatoes and cheese in a baking dish with bit of flour and salt, while I made 2 cups of beef stock from a bouillon cube and water and we poured it into the baking dish with the potatoes and placed the dish in a pre-heated 400˚ oven to cook for 1 hour. 

After about 45 minutes we checked the potatoes and the sauce was watery and the new potatoes still waxy and firm, so we decided to stop the other prep and cook the potatoes for another 30 minutes.  I went to the basement and selected a bottle of 2007 Wellington Petit Verdot and opened it so it could open up.

With fifteen minutes to go, we restarted the prep.  We turned on the heat under the steamer with the sugar snap peas and I heated about 1 Tbsp. of butter and about 1 Tbsp. of olive oil and ½ tsp. of Suzette’s paprika flavored salt into a non-stick pan and threw in the mushrooms, the shallots and ½ Tbsp. of the thyme.  I threw the other ½ Tbsp. of thyme into the iron skillet in which Suzette was going to sauté the steak and she added some butter and olive oil and started sautéing the steak.  After about 8 minutes I turned off the heat under the sugar snap peas and poured about ¼ cup of amontillado sherry into the mushrooms and stewed them for a couple of minutes.  When the steak was cooked to medium rare, Suzette took it off the heat and I poured off the cooking grease and poured the mushroom mixture into the cast iron skillet.  The mushrooms sizzled and I could immediately see the pan drippings releasing from the skillet, but there was not enough liquid to make a sauce, so I added about another ¼ cup of Petit Verdot and the mushrooms and shallots wilted into a sauce like consistency.  Suzette sliced the steak into strips and we served ourselves and poured the wine and sat down to one of the best steak dinners I have had in a long time.  The steak was so flavorful and the mushrooms flavored with the steak dripping and wine blended with the steak for a more intense steak and wine flavor. What a treat, we both agreed.

We had a Florentine cookie (Whole Foods) with the last of our glass of wine after the meal for dessert.

Bon Appétit