"Yabba Dabba Do" -- Roasted Rib Steak with Golden Chanterelles, Pommes Anna, and Bordelaise Sauce

Look, I know I talk a lot about my boyfriend, bacon, and my other boyfriend, Mike Bloomberg. But there's a very good chance I might be cheating on both of them with my new boyfriend, Bordelaise Sauce. Oh my..... my heart is racing just thinking about it again. Let's just jump right in.

I started this dish a day before I wanted to serve it because you have to season your meat (*snerk*) and let it sit in the fridge on a plate for a day. Here's my double rib-cut steak (it's just over 2.5 lbs.):

An hour before cooking, I removed the steak from the refrigerator so it could come to room temperature.

Before that, however, I started working on the sauce and the Pommes Anna. Let's do the sauce first. Oh, the sauce.... THE SAUCE!!!!!!!!!!

I brought to a simmer some red wine, parsley, thyme, a bay leaf, shallots, carrots, mushrooms and garlic:

At the point when the liquid had nearly evaporated....

... I added veal stock and some peppercorns and simmered it for about 20 minutes:

After 20 minutes, the liquid had reduced to a sauce-like consistency, so I strained it into a smaller saucepan. It was during this 20-minute simmer that I fell madly in love with the deliciousness we call Bordelaise. Veal stock, wine, aromatics... oh, how you tempt me. Mom... Dad... meet your new future son-in-law, Bordelaise Sauce:

Of all the sauces I've ever made in my entire life, this is by far my greatest acheivement. I mean, LOOK AT IT! Have you ever seen anything so lovely? I know I go on and on about wanting to take a bath in certain foods, but this was above and beyond.

With the SAUCE! completed, it was time to move on to the Pommes Anna. I put some prunes in a small pot with chicken stock, brought it up to a simmer and cooked them for about 15 minutes.

The prunes were mushy and soft, so I minced them and mixed them with some minced shallots and some sel gris (grey salt).

I know it looks like doody, but believe me, it smelled amazing, and ended up tasting divine. But more on that later. Let's keep going with the potato dish.

I peeled and trimmed some Yukon Gold potatoes into a 2" cylinder-ish shape (I had to add the "-ish" because you'll see there's nary a smooth edge. More like a lopsided, art deco, hexagonal fandango sort of thing) and sliced them to about 1/16" thickness using my kickass Benriner mandoline.

I soaked the potato slices in cold water for a minute or two to get rid of some of the starchiness. While they were soaking, I skimmed the little instruction booklet than came with the mandoline. Of course, I've been using my mandoline for months now, and still had not yet read the instructions. (On a side note, I have also had my car for two years and have never read the manual. I'm awesome like that.) I had a few *snorts*snerks* when I skimmed this particular instruction manual, because I'm a big fan of seeing how things are translated. Get this:

"When vegetable becomes small, thrust it slowly by fixing your eyes on it with great care of your fingertips...." Um sure, Kreskin/Hugh Hefner, I'll get right on that.

Or this:

Typos and odd punctuation/grammar aside, that last sentence has to be one of the longest run-on sentences in the history of kitchen-tool translations. Wow.

So, the potatoes are sliced (not by the thrusting of my eyes, or whatever) and they've soaked, and the prune goop is done. Time to assemble.

First, I gently placed a potato slice in the center of an 8" skillet that had been brushed with clarified butter. Then, I made two layers of potatoes, salted them, added some of the prune mix, then two more layers, salted those, then prune mix, then a final layer of potatoes, which I brushed with clarified butter:

I put the skillet over a medium flame on the stovetop and let it cook for about 5 minutes. I then put it in the oven at 450 degrees for 45 minutes and the potatoes were starting to brown and get crisp.

I let this sit on the stovetop and the put it back in the oven for 10 minutes to rewarm it before serving it.

In the meantime, I made the steak. Let's take another look at that glorious piece of beef:

It had already been out of the fridge for a little over an hour when I patted it dry with paper towels and then kerplonked it into my saute pan with some canola oil already heated up and ready to go:

I seared it for four minutes on one side, then flipped it to sear the other side:

After a few minutes on that side, I took the steak out of the pan, poured off the canola oil, then added some butter to the pan before putting the steak back in it:

I put the steak in the butter-filled pan into a 450-degree oven and roasted it for about five minutes. Then, every five minutes for about 25 minutes, I flipped it and basted it with the melted butter and pan juices. Here's the finished meat, resting for a few minutes while I put the potatoes back in to reheat, and warmed the bordelaise sauce:


At this point, the book recommends sautéeing some chanterelles in butter and a little salt and pepper, but there were no chanterelles at the market, so I used oyster mushrooms instead. I like the taste of oyster mushrooms a little better, too, so this was an easy substitution.

Time for plating. I sliced the steak into half-inch slices, added some potatoes next to them, and topped it all with the mushrooms and the SAUCE!. It's not exactly going to be on the cover of a magazine any time soon, but hot damn, was this delicious:

Fantastic. Amazing. Delectable. Aromatic. Excellence on a Plate.

If you like meat and potatoes and want something hearty but not heavy, this is it. This dish was really outstanding, and honestly? Not all that difficult. Not only was the steak tender and good and the potatoes cooked through really nicely, I swear, you will want to marry this sauce when you taste it -- it's so complex and layered, but also so simple and pointed. The one thing about the potatoes that I would change for next time is somehow change the pruney-ness of the potatoes. I thought they were too prune-intense, but that's just my opinion. However, I was so thrilled to have some potatoes and sauce leftover for lunch the next day... and the smell of the reheated sauce made me the happiest camper around.

Up Next: "Banana Split" -- Poached-Banana Ice Cream with White Chocolate-Banana Crèpes and Chocolate Sauce

Resources:
Meat, produce and most of the aromatics from Whole Foods
Parsley and thyme from my garden (woo-hoo!)
365 unsalted butter
David's kosher salt
Ex Libris Cabernet Sauvignon (2004)

Music to Cook By: Jem; Finally Woken. Not everyone likes Jem Griffiths. Some think she's too strummy-strummy-la-la. Others think she's a Kate Bush or Dido knock-off. I don't necessarily agree or disagree strongly with any of these assessments. I just like her music. I usually listen to her in the car, but this time I cranked it up while I was cooking, and it worked.

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