Steak with red wine and mushroom sauce

 Not every meal works, sometimes all the separate elements are there but the co-mingling creates a meal far too busy where individual flavours and subtle nuances are lost. I don't mind when this happens too much, it's all part of the learning curve, as long as lessons are learnt, that is. Yesterday I wanted to try and use some of the produce from the farmers market along with some steaks in the fridge and some left over red wine sitting quietly on the counter top. The plan was to fry some of the beet leaves with onion, peppers, garlic and some mixed greens, boil the broccoli and dress with butter and salt, fry the steak and then make a mushroom and red wine sauce. It sounded like a good use of the vegetables and creative enough to be whimsical and delicious, or so I thought..

  

The 'stir-fry' of veg worked well, the beet leaves giving a crimson hue to the already red onions which perfectly complemented the vivid lime green of the greens and the splash of red and orange of the peppers. I seasoned with some chili powder and a little ground cumin to add a little earthiness and spice.

The steak was cut from a large sirloin tri-point highlighted in an earlier post. It was very cheap and I worried it may be a little tough although the grain seemed very evident so I thought it would be OK if we cut across the grain. I seasoned with salt and pepper and fried for about 5 minutes on each side until medium.

The sauce was to be my highlight and it was exceptionally good. I added 2 tbsp butter to the frying pan after frying the steaks and 1 chopped shallot. I stirred this around for a moment, scraping all the steaky goodness from the bottom and then added about 1/4 cup red wine and 1 sachet of rich beef stock. This bubbled merrily for a few minutes and then I added 1/4 cup water and about 1/4 cup sliced mushrooms and allowed it to simmer gently for a few moments more.

I boiled the broccoli for about 5 minutes, drained it and dressed it with 1 tsp butter and some salt and pepper.

So, to assemble this beast, I lay the colourful veg on the plate, topped with a steak and broccoli and poured the sauce over everything. So, what went wrong. First, the vegetables were lost underneath the steak and the subtle spices I added were not even detectable. The steak was quite tough and chewy, the broccoli was tasty and very tender but the sauce was lost amidst everything else happening. 

What I should have done was marinade the steak with similar flavours to the sauce to create some unity on the plate and served the broccoli and vegetables on the side of the plate so the sauce could be sampled separately with the steak. Also, the steak could have been sliced thinly against the grain like flank or skirt steak to make it more tender. I guess this is what they call a busy plate and I constantly need to remind myself the old adage that rings so true: less is more.