Re: Dinner this evening....

[Guest guest]

Did it turn out " well done, " " medium, " or rarish? I always hesitate to take an

expensive

steak and cook it in a gravy or sauté it -- afraid to " mess up " a naturally

almost perfect

piece of expensive meat, though I do put either garlic salt or -- is it

McCormick " s? --

Monterey Steak blend on it.... and I always cook it over mushrooms in a pan and

the

natural juices seep into the mushrooms while it's grilling and both are done at

once. Your

method sounds very good -- Do you like it BETTER than the regular way? Or just

as

variety?

>

> Dinner this evening was an interesting thing. My wife had a couple of

> steaks she picked up for us, so I pulled out two skillets and set to work.

>

> First I did my standard startup for meat -- I chopped onions and garlic,

> then sauteed them in almond oil with just a little butter. After they'd

> sauteed a bit (I did it on a fairly low temp so as NOT to scorch the minced

> garlic), I added the steak and trimmed off the fat. At that point I ground

> some 6 peppercorn blend pepper on top, a little kosher salt, then a hint of

> majoram. This I poked and rubbed into the top of the steak. After a while,

> I flipped it and did the same to the other side.

>

> Eventually, when the steak had cooked to about medium, I cubed it. Then I

> added a couple of quick splashes of soy sauce -- not much, mind you, just

> enough to get a bit of flavoring in there. We'll call it a tablespoon tops.

>

> I continued stirring this around in the skillet a while, to make sure

> everything mixed up well and the flavors mingled nicely. Then I took a

> couple of heaping tablespoons of flour, mixed it with about a cup of water,

> and added this to the skillet while stirring (making a flour gravy). (BTW,

> you can use any flour here you like, or a little corn starch if you prefer.

> Likewise, you can skip the gravy step altogether.)

>

> The final result was fantastic. The beef took on a sweet taste from the

> onions, garlic, marjoram, soy and flour while still grabbing a salty flavor

> from the soy and salt and even still having a bit of spicey flavor from the

> pepper. A very nice blending of the various flavors. The gravy added

> texture and picked up the remaining juices from the skillet, not to mention

> the little bit of onions and garlic that were left. The kids loved it (and

> they're not particularly big on beef at all, let alone steak.)

>

> Since this was a bit of a comfort food run, I made it just a tad fattier

> than I probably should have. Nothing says it couldn't have been made

> less so, I simply chose to do so on this particular dish. I could see this

> being served over a pasta or noodle perhaps, also with rice, or eaten plain

> (which is how I ate it). To modify the flavor, you could also add sliced,

> fresh mushrooms towards the end. You could also chop some vegetables

> (carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, whatever) or add whole vegetables (such as

> peas) to make this into something of a stew. Lots of possibilities with

> what this could be combined with to get the end product.

>

> Of course, this was a phase 2 dish. I watch my sodium so I do not use

> very much salt or sodium containing ingredients -- the whole dish, which

> could comfortably serve 3 I'd think, had maybe 1000mg of sodium. I use real

> butter -- a personal deviation from the diet as I'm not willing to take in

> the transfats that come along with the others -- so this had a bit more fat

> in it than most of my other dishes. To keep the butter from scorching, I

> used about a tablespoon of almond oil Whole wheat flour is fine on P2 and

> it adds an interesting flavor element to dishes like this (usually a subtle

> sweetness). Since I like onions and garlic, this had about 2 1/2 cloves of

> garlic and about a fourth of a large onion (roughly 3/4 cup chopped, I

> suppose).

>