American Entree
SKILLET SIRLOIN
INGREDIENTS
2 pounds boneless top sirloin steaks
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons peanut oil
BROTH MIX
1 medium yellow onion
4 garlic cloves
1 ripe tomato
1/2 cup beef broth
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1/2 teaspoon parsley
UTENSIL
electric skillet
PREPARATION
Cut steaks into 8 pieces. (I’m not dogmatic about this number. You must cook to please yourself and your guests. Of course, if you manage to cut 6 3/4 pieces, mathematicians everywhere will want to know how you cut 3/4 of a piece.)
Peel and dice onion and garlic cloves. Peel tomato. (You might find it faster to peel if you boil the tomato for 30 seconds first.) Chop tomato into little bits. Add beef broth, Dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce, thyme, pepper, coriander, and parsley into mixing bowl. Stir with knife until thoroughly mixed. This is the broth mix.
Set temperature on skillet to 325 degrees. Add olive oil, peanut oil, and sirloin steak to skillet.
Cook for 4 minutes. Turn steak pieces over while stirring the juice. Cook for 2 minutes more. Add broth mix. Cook for 3 minutes. The steak should turn out medium to medium well. Consider checking one of the pieces a few minutes earlier, especially if you prefer rarer steak, as it’s impossible to reverse the cooking process for beef. (Unless, of course, you have a time machine, and go back to where your steak reached its desired doneness. May I suggest, though, if you do have a time machine that you play the stock market or go to the horse races?)
Put steak on plates and evenly ladle the spicy juice over all the pieces.
TIDBITS
1) This tidbit didn’t survive editing.
2) Legend has it that villagers in Transylvania could kill a vampire with a stake through the heart.
3) And tales of the Old West relate many a blood sucking at midnight by flying vampire cows.
3) This is why cowpokes pounded nails into their steaks.
4) This is also the reason drovers put silver bullets in their six shooters.
5) Maybe these stories are tall tales, but maybe brave trailblazers rid the western lands of these blood-sucking bovines.
6) Whatever the reason, there have been no “vampire cow” sightings in San Diego in the last century, for which I am grateful.
7) But just in case, this recipe has 4 cloves of garlic in it.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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