Think serving steak with all the fixings is hard to do on a weeknight? Think again! With a little sous vide magic and pre-planning, I managed to get dinner on the table in under an hour. That sound you hear? It’s me patting myself on the back.
Here’s how I tackled dinner:
When I got home from work this morning, I took out a couple of Costco purchased organic beef rib eye steaks from the fridge. I dried the meat with paper towels, seasoned with Sagemary finishing salt and freshly ground black pepper…
…and vacuum sealed them.
Okay – these babies aren’t grass fed, but I wanted to try them out because they were reasonably priced and I miss the unctuous, fatty taste of grain fed beef.
I heated the SousVide Supreme to 129 F and plopped in my two steaks. I was going to let them bathe until I woke up at 5:00 p.m (~ 8hours).
I also vacuum sealed some Dukka-seasoned pork chops…
…and Tabil-seasoned chicken breasts.
I was going to put these packets in the SousVide Supreme after I took out the steaks in the evening.
Then, I took a Lunesta and conked out. (Lunesta is badass but it leaves a terrible taste in your mouth when you first swallow it…)*
When I woke up in the evening, I assembled the ingredients to make herb gravy…
…with sautéed mushrooms and leeks.
I dumped the broth, onions, dried thyme, and garlic into a small saucepan and simmered everything for about 30 minutes.
In the meantime, I steamed some cauliflower florets and garlic to make garlic cauliflower mashed “potatoes.” When they were softened, I pureed them in the Cuisinart with some extra virgin olive oil, grated nutmeg, Kosher salt, and freshly ground black pepper.
I also dumped a pound of trimmed green beans into my Corningware and nuked them until tender. When they were done, I tossed on some extra virgin olive oil, Kosher salt, and freshly ground black pepper.
With my veggies out of the way, I focused my attention on the main event: THE MEAT. I took the steaks out of the SousVide Supreme and dried them. After heating a couple tablespoons of lard in my 12-inch cast iron skillet, I seared the steaks…
…for 2 minutes on each side. Look at that nice char!
After I plated the steaks…
…I threw the sliced leeks and mushrooms into the cast iron skillet and sautéed them with some salt and pepper. By this time, the herb gravy was ready to be pureed, so I dumped the contents of the saucepan into the Vitamix and blitzed the sauce for 30 seconds. When the mushrooms were nice and browned, I poured in the herb gravy and let it simmer for a few minutes.
Voila! Here’s my steak dinner with three side dishes – all done in about an hour.
Costco’s organic steaks tasted pretty good. I always get better results from my SousVide Supreme when I use grain-fed cow parts. Don’t worry; I chased it down with a shot of fish oil.
*UPDATE 3/22/13: I don’t use Lunesta anymore or any other prescription sleep aid. This post was from more than 2 years ago and my daytime sleep routine has improved a lot.
