Dinner : Late-Night

When my husband has his hockey game in the earliest time slot for his league, we eat rather late in the evening. I chose a pretty simple meal for this late-night dinner because otherwise, it's difficult to time it perfectly for when he arrives home. I had gotten another great deal on an Omaha Steaks package, which was delivered on Thursday, so I took the opportunity to use a couple of filet mignons. I turned on the Grammys and set to it.

While the Pan-Seared Beef Filet with Green Peppercorn Sauce recipe calls for a pairing of greens and mashed potatoes, I opted for Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Bacon, Caramelized Onions and Sage, from a recent TastingTable email that I received. After gathering all of my ingredients, I realized that the side dish was going to take longer than the main course, so I set to caramelizing the onions first.

After a half an hour, the onions were perfectly caramelized, so I removed them from the pan and replaced them with my chopped slab bacon, and let it cook for about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, I was also blanching the Brussels Sprouts in preparation for pulling this side dish together! I also put the steaks on the heat at this point, as well.

Once the bacon had properly rendered, I added the Brussels Sprouts, halved, with the cut sides down, allowing them to caramelize in the bacon fat before stirring everything up. After allowing the sprouts to fully cook, I added the onions back to the pan, along with some sage, lemon juice, olive oil and flaky sea salt for seasoning. I kept that on the stove on low while I finished the steak sauce.

After four minutes on one side, and three minutes on the other, I removed the steaks from the pan, allowing them to rest on a cutting board while I quickly made a sauce out of shallots, red wine, beef broth, a little bit of cornstarch, and some ground green peppercorns. The sauce was finished with a little pat of butter and we were ready to go!

I have to say, the Brussels Sprouts dish really shined tonight. I'm going to keep that recipe for sure! While the steak was good, it was a bit generic and I probably won't make it again...then again, do I ever make the same thing twice?!