On the menu: Steak with Sauce Robert, Roasted Maine Carola Potatoes, and Roasted Asparagus
Oh my goodness. I don’t even know where to begin with this meal. Kevin has always spoke highly of French cooking, and frankly, it’s always terrified me. When he wrote his post about cookbooks, he mentioned I Know How to Cook by Ginette Mathiot, the French bible of cooking. I picked it up the other day and wondered aloud why we never cook anything from it if he loves it so much. I started reading through the recipes and I remembered why: French cuisine is extremely intimidating. Their food is so good, and they are so nonchalant about it because that’s how it’s always been. Kevin is pretty nonchalant about most things; I am nonchalant about nothing. French cooking and I just have personality differences.
Well, my wondering led to a renewed motivation to make recipes from this epic tome of all food French. A conversation in the car on the way home from work earlier in the week had us talking about sauces, something the French are extremely good at. We decided to look in the sauces section of the book, and whoa. There were a TON of sauces we could make. We consulted the meat section of the book and found a list of sauces that pair well with meat, which narrowed down our selection a bit. Sauce Robert was our final choice because it required less work than most other sauces on the list and we had almost all of the ingredients on hand. That’s the thing about French cooking…they use such basic ingredients and manage to make the most delicious meals from them! It’s like magic.
We started off our dinner by slicing some Maine Carola potatoes into wedges and roasting them in olive oil, salt, pepper, and rosemary at 425 degrees. Carola potatoes are only available mid-potato season (aka right now) and are grown in northern Maine. They’re very creamy and buttery and have a golden yellow flesh with a unique flavor that makes them awesome when roasted.
When the potatoes were in the oven, we set to work on the sauce. The sauce begins by melting butter and sauteing onions until they brown. Then flour is added to make a thick brown roux (my second roux in a little over a week!). When the roux is golden brown, beef stock and a little Sauvignon Blanc are added and the sauce is simmered for 20 minutes.
While the sauce was simmering, Kevin set to work on the steaks by brushing them with a little olive oil. He then seared the steaks to lock in the juices and kept them on the stove until they were cooked through.
By this time the potatoes had finished cooking, so we took them out of the oven and tossed them with some more pepper and rosemary. We rounded out our dinner by roasting some asparagus. Roasted asparagus is so easy…toss some asparagus with olive oil, salt, and pepper and roast it in the oven on a baking sheet for a few minutes. That’s it!
As the asparagus was roasting and the steaks were resting, I finished the Sauce Robert by adding tomato paste, mustard, and a splash of red wine and apple cider vinegars. The recipe calls for white wine vinegar, but we have 4 kinds of vinegar in our pantry and did not feel like adding a 5th. We only have so much space in our wee apartment, you know?
We plated everything up in eager anticipation and sat down to take our first bites. The asparagus was still a little crunchy, just how it should be. The potatoes were a little overdone, but they were still buttery and delicious. The steaks were done just right. The sauce…left us speechless. It truly was the star of the meal. It was meaty, buttery, tangy, and spectacular! We could taste each ingredient we had put into it! The wine gave it a little sweetness, the tomato paste, mustard, and vinegar gave it some tang, and the beef stock made it absolutely divine on our steaks! We may have licked our plates clean.
French cooking is intimidating, that’s for sure, but after this meal we are really looking forward to making more French food!
Sauce Robert
from I Know How to Cook by Ginette Mathiot
translated to English by Clotilde Dusoulier!
3 1/2 t. butter
2 oz onion, finely chopped (we used 1/4 of a medium sized onion and weighed it…it was exactly 2 oz!)
1/2 c. flour
Generous 2 c. any stock (we flavored chicken broth with beef bouillon)
1/4 c. dry white wine (we used Sauvignon Blanc)
salt and pepper
1/2 T. white wine vinegar (we mixed red wine and apple cider vinegars)
1 T. mustard (we used Honey Dijon)
1 T. tomato paste
Melt the butter in a pan, add the onion and cook on medium heat until the onion is browned. Be careful not to burn the butter! Add the flour and stir often until the roux is browned. Gradually add stock and wine, season with salt and pepper and simmer for 20 minutes. Add vinegar, tomato paste, and mustard right before serving.
Documenting our Dinner. 