January 24th - Steak and potatoes

January 24th – Steak and Potatoes
I still am very much a steak and potato guy. I can’t eat it every night, but there are times when I still crave them both. I’m also a big fan of hash browns and hashes of various types. One of my favorite ways to cook potatoes is to cube them and then to cook them in oil with garlic, onions, thyme and sometimes red chili. Since the potatoes need the longest time, I usually add them first and cook them most of the way before adding some finely diced onions and garlic. Invariably they take longer than I think they should, but I still enjoy it immensely.
For the steak, I used a petit sirloin that we had. It’s a tough and often inelegant cut of meat, but if you cook it quickly so it gets a good sear but stays rare in the middle, it can be a nice beefy flavored cut. (If you cook I past medium-rare it can be tough and flavorless.) I didn’t do a pan sauce this time because I was hungry and just used salt and pepper before searing the steak in a cast iron pan.
A great steak deserves great red wine, but in this case I decided that a decent steak deserved a great wine. I love syrah and am glad that it’s being grown in more places, but the northern Rhone valley in France is still home to some of the world’s best syrahs. In the fine wine world, there are still some relative bargains to be had there. Crozes Hermitage is such a region. Although the wines don’t have the power of true Hermitage, they can be fantastic wines with a great sense of terroir. I had a 1996 La Guiraud Crozes Hermitage from Alain Graillot which had held up beautifully and was still fairly tannic and rich. It had deep dark berry notes, rich intensity and some earthy notes. It could have used a richer entrée, like a steak with a wild mushroom sauce or something else intense, but it was still fantastic with the beef. Pearls before swine? Maybe but entirely satisfying.