Smiths of Brightlingsea provided some stonking ribeyes and a quick leaf through my various cookery tomes concluded that I was going to dress them with a marvellous smoked tomato butter from the Gjelina book. Yeah. Best laid plans were soon abandoned after some long walks and second hand shopping gems ate away the 3 day process needed to achieve said smoked tomato butter and a hasty substitute was in order. For what was essentially a kitchen scraps concoction, the result was massively pleasing, I can’t really explain my thought process other than using up an open bottle of red which I sadly can’t drink these days due to a shift in asthma triggers (boo). Mushrooms keep it earthy with some substance and the balsamic just takes off the boozy edge of the wine. I’d have used cream if we had it but the yoghurt gave a nice finish without going too claggy or drowning out the beef. Very happy.
Maybe we will try the smoked tomato butter for year 6.
Boomboom Quick Steak Sauce
Serves 2
Olive oil
1 glass red wine
1 white onion
1 large field mushroom or 4 closed cup
4 cloves garlic
1tbspn balsamic vinegar
1tsp caster sugar
Sea salt & lots of fresh ground black pepper
Natural yoghurt
Start off with a good 2tbspns olive oil (I like co-op loved by us greek extra virgin) heated in a small saucepan before adding your finely chopped onion and crushed garlic. Cook for 2 minutes before adding the also very finely chopped mushrooms and continue to cook until the mushrooms are done and the onions just start to caramelise at the edges.
Add the red wine and simmer to reduce. As always try to avoid using a wine you wouldn’t drink! When the liquid has reduced by about 1/3 add the sugar, balsamic and a really good amount of black pepper.
Continue to reduce until you get a consistency that is more like a chunky sauce and less like some bits of veg floating in winey-broth. Take off the heat, add a heaped tablespoon of natural yoghurt and serve- ideally over a another griddled field mushroom atop your medium-rare steak. Delicious!
for extra meatiness add a tbspn of the juices from your steak pan also.
Food. Boom. 