Red Wine Pan Sauce
Here’s a delicious steak sauce you make right in the pan after you cook or brown the steaks.
If the steaks are 1/2 to 1″ thick, you will season them with garlic salt and pepper, Montreal Steak seasoning, or whatever you prefer. Then heat a mixture of butter and oil in the skillet and cook them for a few minutes on each side until they are done the way you want. See the New York Steak page for internal temperatures.
As the New York Steak page indicates, if the steaks are 1 1/2 to 2 inches thick, you only brown them in the skillet and finish them in the oven.
In either case, you will wind up with stuff sticking to the skillet, which is called fond. The fond has great flavor, and by deglazing the pan with wine, you will remove the fond from the skillet and incorporate it into the sauce. Here’s what you do for this sauce:
INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup red wine
1 tablespoon cognac
3 tablespoons finely chopped onion or shallots
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 cup beef broth
INSTRUCTIONS
While the steaks are in the oven or resting on the cutting board, add the wine to the hot skillet, and during the steaming and hissing, scrape the skillet bottom clean with a flat tipped spatula. Then add the remaining ingredients and simmer for 10 minutes or so until it reaches the consistency you like.
Spoon the sauce over the steak and get ready for the compliments!