We haven’t eaten much beef the past few months. Yes, we’ve done a number of ground beef dishes, but I haven’t cooked a stew or a roast or a steak in goodness knows how long. I could pull the planner where I log our dinners and find the last time we ate steak, but I’m comfortably ensconced in the recliner after a busy day, and I really don’t feel like moving. Let’s just say? It’s been a while.
It’s not that Ken and I can’t actually afford beef, but when I pick up a package in the store and look at the price, I haven’t been able to bring myself to pay it. So when Publix put my favorite cut on sale, I bought not one, but two packages.
We generally buy a cut that Publix markets as “boneless sirloin fillet.” The steaks are well-trimmed top sirloin. The individual steaks are usually less than half a pound, so each is usually an individual portion.
I’m not sure that we’ve decided on what recipe we’ll use for the second package. There was no question, though, about what I was going to do with the first one, though: steak Diane, using the recipe from the Commander’s Palace Cookbook. It’s my favorite steak recipe, and from the restaurant where we ate what was probably the best restaurant meal I’ve ever eaten.
I’ve been to New Orleans twice, both times when Ken’s professional society meeting was in city. The first trip was in 1981. We had two objectives: to eat oysters and to have dinner at Commander’s Palace. Owned by the Brennan family, it was run at the time by Ella and Dick Brennan, the authors of the cookbook. The restaurant absolutely lived up to its reputation. It was the blend of excellent food, pitch-perfect service, and wonderful ambiance that made it a truly memorable meal.
We actually both ate seafood at the restaurant, and I don’t remember if Steak Diane was on the menu at the time. (I looked at the current menu on the restaurant’s website, and it isn’t now. Unsurprisingly, the menu is very different from 45 years ago.) In the cookbook, the headnote says it is a Brennan family favorite, and one of the first dishes their children learned to cook.
The dish is, indeed, quick and easy. The book calls for tenderloin, but I’ve always used the sirloin steaks I discussed above. The other thing I do is to cut back on the insane amount of butter in the recipe. I think my arteries start clogging up, just reading it. The original recipe includes instructions for making new potatoes with parsley butter. I’ve served the steak with potatoes quite often, but usually I’ll roast new potatoes or make what is known in our family as Czech style potatoes: boiled cubed potatoes with melted butter, which was the most common side dish we encountered in Prague. This time, though, I baked the frozen sweet potato fries we had in the freezer, and we definitely enjoyed them with the steak.
Steak Diane (Lynn’s version)
- 3/4 to 1 pound beef top sirloin, well trimmed and cut into 2 pieces
- 1 teaspoon creole meat seasoning (recipe follows)
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 2 tablespoons steak sauce
- 1/4 cup chopped parsley
Season meat with creole meat seasoning on both sides.
Melt butter in a hot skillet, and sauté the steaks to desired degree of doneness. Remove from pan and keep warm.
Add Worcestershire sauce and steak sauce to butter remaining in the pan, and cook, stirring in all bits of meat glaze from the bottom of the pan. Add parsley, then pour it over the meat. Serve immediately. Makes 2 servings.
The creole meat seasoning recipe is included in the cookbook. It makes 3 cups of seasoning, so when I made it, I made just one-third of the recipe. The recipe says it will keep indefinitely, and I believe it. I can’t remember when I made this batch, but it’s still good. It’s really a good general steak seasoning.
Creole Meat Seasoning
- 1 cup salt
- 3/4 cup granulated garlic
- 3/4 cup freshly ground black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or to taste
- 1/4 cup paprika
Combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly. Store in a container that can be sealed tightly. Makes 3 cups.
If you look at the pictures and think it looks like there’s burnt stuff on the steak, it’s because the sauce, which is quite dark, coats the parsley. So yes, it is lacks in presentation, but definitely not in flavor.
This felt like a celebration meal. In a way, it was. Ken has been able to add most foods back into his diet. The only thing he still needs to avoid is onions. I made a salad on the side that included some marinated roasted tomatoes that we picked up from the olive bar at Whole Foods.
Happy eating!
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