It’s been cold, damp, dreary, damp, rainy, damp, gray, and, did I mention DAMP?
Walking, or, mebbe more truthfully, dragging the world’s best puppy yesterday through yet another day’s blattering of rain made me truly thankful for chunky-soled shoes, slightly short jeans, and the sheer number of hoodies I seem to have acquired these past few years.
However, it did absolutely nothing to put me in the mood to try something new in the kitchen, and so we are left to revisit steak, ermmm, frites: steak, nicely fried in butter and served with freshly fried potatoes, in the Belgian manner.
Except…
That bag of potatoes I had just picked up at the market had begun to get more than a bit fuzzy around the edges, so dinner became steak tots – still nicely fried chunks o’ beef with a browned butter sauce, but now with tots, fresh from the oven and extra crispy.
Served with a tossed salad featuring tomatoes fresh from teh garden and topped with some home made Thousand Island Dressing, it wasn’t a bad dinner for a – have I said it was damp? – day.
INGREDIENTS
•Steak – I used two rib eyes from our last trip to Costco, but just about any cut would do
•Butter – 5 tablespoons
•Salt and pepper
•Water – one tablespoon
Bring your steaks out onto the counter and allow to come up to room temperature – about 45 minutes.
Melt three tablespoons of the butter over high heat in a large sauté pan – just until hot and melted, but not smoking.
Add your now room temperature steaks to the butter in the pan and cook quickly, one minute on each side.
Reduce the temperature to medium, season the steaks well with salt and pepper, and continue cooking for an additional six to eight minutes, turning every two minutes.
Remove the steaks to a warm platter, deglaze the pan with the one tablespoon of water, and then quickly swirl in the remaining two tablespoons of butter.
Pour the butter sauce over the steaks and serve. I was waiting for those darned tots to finish, so I popped my steaks back into the pan with the sauce, put the lid on, and set it on the back of the stove until I was ready.
Mmmm, steak ‘n tots.