BIRD FARM SOUTHNot Much Better Than This
OH. MY. GOD. - We done died and gone to heaven. Whoops, I've gotten ahead of myself. This story started months ago and I'll get to that over the next few days, or weeks. But for now, let's discuss Saturday. I pulled a half dozen frozen elk tenderloin steaks out of the freezer in the morning and threw them on the counter to thaw. Saturdays at the Bird Farm are a mixture of chores, play, resting (if we're lucky), reading and cooking for me at least. I've been studyin' up on elk/venison/antelope recipes in anticipation of this very day. The door guru - my husband - is very tolerant of my cooking experiments. Our friends, for the most part, are also very tolerant and amazingly appreciative of the experiments. Anyhow - these steaks, from an elk the door guru shot on 10.23.09 in Wyoming, are 2 - 2 1/2" thick and have been butterflied to just over an inch thick. No fat and very little gristle, these beautiful things are darn near health food!
Since this was our first taste of this elk, I decided to keep it simple. A healthy sprinkle (rub) of Canadian steak seasoning, extra fresh ground pepper and a couple hours rest should do it. I heated a heavy skillet over medium high heat and added a couple Tbsp. of canola oil. When the oil started to smoke - in went the steaks along with a couple Tbsp of butter. Two minutes later the bottom edges were coloring and I flipped 'em over. At this point, I turned the heat down to medium low for 3-4 more minutes. Due to the absence of fat in this meat, I never dry cook to more than medium rare. I took the steaks off the fire to a warm platter, gave 'em a slurp of melted butter cut w/ sweet balsamic and soy and tented them w/ foil to rest. Man, are they pretty!
The elk steaks were served with scalloped potatoes, brought by my mom, roasted butternut squash w/ green beans and the above mentioned soy/balsamic butter. I sauteed a couple chopped up portobello mushrooms in butter (ok - I like butter) and sauced them with a wine/cream reduction. Unfortunately, I just dumped some of the wine I was drinking (it was good) into the mushroom skillet. It was red wine. So, our mushroom sauce was an interesting shade of purple. Oh well. It tasted great, just looked like it was from outer space. Now I had a bag-o-salad, a few Mr. Stripey tomatoes and a sweet onion as well as a loaf of fresh multi grain bread ready for dinner. The Darling dinner guests as well as my mom and hubby agreed that we had plenty of food on the table, so I left the salad and bread in the kitchen. And so we ate.
Does it ever get REAL quiet at your dinner table? I like that sound, the sound of utensils scraping plates, the murmured "please passes" and most of all the soft mmmm noises that mean I've hit a home run. We finished off our red meat fest with Market & More brownies and Whitey's french vanilla ice cream. Now do you understand why I said OMG at the beginning of this post?
BTW - Market & More makes the finest brownies I have ever tasted. They are located at 112 E 2nd Street in beautiful downtown Casper, WY. If you get the chance, don't miss them. Whitey's ice cream is made here in Moline, IL and is very, very, very fine.
Anytime my husband takes a bite of my cooking and softly says "Oh Yeah", I am a happy cook. He hunts for it, shoots it and carefully field dresses and cleans the meat. We have the meat processed by fine meat cutters and then it looks like something I recognize. My job at this point is to go after that "Oh yeah". It's a good thing that this meal turned out well. Yesterday we put 200 lbs. of it in our brand new upright freezer. Course we had to buy a freezer to hold all the meat. Looks like Bird Farm South will eat alot of red meat this year.
Since this was our first taste of this elk, I decided to keep it simple. A healthy sprinkle (rub) of Canadian steak seasoning, extra fresh ground pepper and a couple hours rest should do it. I heated a heavy skillet over medium high heat and added a couple Tbsp. of canola oil. When the oil started to smoke - in went the steaks along with a couple Tbsp of butter. Two minutes later the bottom edges were coloring and I flipped 'em over. At this point, I turned the heat down to medium low for 3-4 more minutes. Due to the absence of fat in this meat, I never dry cook to more than medium rare. I took the steaks off the fire to a warm platter, gave 'em a slurp of melted butter cut w/ sweet balsamic and soy and tented them w/ foil to rest. Man, are they pretty!
The elk steaks were served with scalloped potatoes, brought by my mom, roasted butternut squash w/ green beans and the above mentioned soy/balsamic butter. I sauteed a couple chopped up portobello mushrooms in butter (ok - I like butter) and sauced them with a wine/cream reduction. Unfortunately, I just dumped some of the wine I was drinking (it was good) into the mushroom skillet. It was red wine. So, our mushroom sauce was an interesting shade of purple. Oh well. It tasted great, just looked like it was from outer space. Now I had a bag-o-salad, a few Mr. Stripey tomatoes and a sweet onion as well as a loaf of fresh multi grain bread ready for dinner. The Darling dinner guests as well as my mom and hubby agreed that we had plenty of food on the table, so I left the salad and bread in the kitchen. And so we ate.
Does it ever get REAL quiet at your dinner table? I like that sound, the sound of utensils scraping plates, the murmured "please passes" and most of all the soft mmmm noises that mean I've hit a home run. We finished off our red meat fest with Market & More brownies and Whitey's french vanilla ice cream. Now do you understand why I said OMG at the beginning of this post?
BTW - Market & More makes the finest brownies I have ever tasted. They are located at 112 E 2nd Street in beautiful downtown Casper, WY. If you get the chance, don't miss them. Whitey's ice cream is made here in Moline, IL and is very, very, very fine.
Anytime my husband takes a bite of my cooking and softly says "Oh Yeah", I am a happy cook. He hunts for it, shoots it and carefully field dresses and cleans the meat. We have the meat processed by fine meat cutters and then it looks like something I recognize. My job at this point is to go after that "Oh yeah". It's a good thing that this meal turned out well. Yesterday we put 200 lbs. of it in our brand new upright freezer. Course we had to buy a freezer to hold all the meat. Looks like Bird Farm South will eat alot of red meat this year.
And to paraphrase Julia Child; If you are afraid of butter, then just add more cream! Never had a bad meal at Bird Farm South, or even a mediocre one, always FABULOUS! Thanks Lisa.
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