Its our 18th Wedding Anniversary on Sunday coming up. Its hard to believe that we have already been married for that long. My last marriage lasted for 22 years and that time seems to have taken so much longer to pass. Those were the years I spent raising a family, so maybe that partially accounts for the time seeming longer. These past 18 years seem to have flown by at the speed of light!
A special occasion such as an anniversary calls for a special meal and so I picked up these steaks at the shops a week or so back to do a test in preparation for our anniversary dinner. We don't eat a lot of red meat in our home, but we do enjoy a good steak every now and then.
In fact if it weren't for that fact, I could probably happily be a vegetarian, but . . . a good steak would always be calling my name, or a slice of prime rib . . . or a fillet Mignon . . .
I used rib eye steaks. Each about 1 inch in thickness. You will want to make sure that your steaks are at room temperature, so leave them out of the refrigerator for at least 1/2 hour prior to cooking.
The steak themselves have a simple preparation . . . just rub them with olive oil and salt and pepper. There are two schools of thought on salting meat before cooking. There are some that say it draws out too much moisture, and there are others that call it hogwash to say such a thing.
I will be honest here and say that I have never noticed a difference either way. You just do whatever your conscience tells you to do and I am sure it will work out.
We still have some fresh herbs in the garden, rosemary and thyme. The rest are pretty much done now. I picked some of those to use along with some lovely garlic our friend Eric grew this year.
He very generously gave us some and I have had it drying in the shed. Today is the first time I have used it and it is beautiful. I used 3 lovely fat cloves . . . I really should plant my own, but the soil in our garden is like clay and very poor.
Other than the steak, the herbs and the garlic the only other thing you will need is a good unsalted butter. I like the Danish one. (No names.)
The steaks are seared in a hot skillet on the first side and then flipped over, at which time you add the herbs, garlic and butter to the skillet. You continue to cook them until your desired doneness is achieved, basting them with the butter, which is quickly flavoured by the garlic and herbs . . . all the while.
It should only take a further 5 minutes or so and you will have a beautifully flavoured and cooked pair of steaks!
Yield: 2Author: Marie Rayner
Butter, Herb & Garlic Basted Steaks
prep time: 30 minscook time: 10 minstotal time: 40 minsYou can get much better than this. Tasty, tender perfectly cooked rib eye steaks with a luscious and flavourful butter baste.ingredients:
2 (1-inch thick) boneless rib eye beef steaks at room temperaturefreshly ground sea salt and black pepper2 TBS light olive oil3 TBS unsalted butter4 sprigs of fresh thyme2 sprig fresh rosemary3 cloves of garlic, peeled and halvedinstructions:
Take your steaks and rub them all over with 1/2 TBS of olive oil andseason with some salt and black pepper. Heat the remaining oil in a
heavy bottomed or cast iron skillet until it just begins to shimmer.
Add the steaks and sear well on one side, about 5 minutes. Flip over
and add the herbs, butter and garlic to the pan. Continue to coo for a
further 4 to 5 minutes (medium rare), basting continuously with the
butter. Remove from heat and set aside to rest for about 10 minutes.
Serve warm with some of the butter spooned over top.Created using The Recipes Generator
I served them with some little gratins that I discovered at our Lidl store in the frozen food department.
I wanted to try them before the holiday season. We both really enjoyed them. They were delicious and I am going to buy some more to pop into the freezer to serve with our Prime Rib at Christmas. They will save me a lot of time in prepping a gratin from scratch and they really were delicious. Plus they are cooked perfectly in about 20 to 25 minutes time, which makes them perfect for popping into the oven while the meat rests. I highly recommend. They also have potato and broccoli ones.
In any case I was really pleased with how everything turned out so that is that. Ohh, question. Just a few minutes ago, I heard a loud bang and I looked over at my dining table and my really expensive salt grinder had spontaneously combusted and exploded. It had pink Himalayan sea salt in it. Has anyone else ever had that happen? I was happy we were not sitting at the table at the time. It could have been nasty. (Cue in Twilight Zone theme song here.) Bon Appetit!
