Good sauce for steak

[Doodad]

I need some new ideas please. I am cracking the last cryovac of hanger steak I scored for dinner tonight.

I want to make a memorable sauce. It is pouring rain all day so they will be pan fried. I usually do a wine reduction sauce, but need a new idea.

I have home made stock, demi shallots, roasted garlic and shallots, wine, various vinegars and some vidalia onion sprouts. What do you think?

[Busboy]

This is far from a refined sauce, but it has a visceral appeal that's pretty unbeatable.

Get yourself some anchovies and roast maybe half a head of garlic until brown and smushy. Using a mortar and pestle of foos processor, grind the garlic and the anchovy into a paste. In the mean time, boil down a good bit of demi glace and a big slug of red wine. Add about 2/3 of the garlic anchovy paste, taste and adjust as needed -- adding more demi-glace, or paste or whatever seems good. Drizzle in a little red wine vinegar and finish with butter. Make more than you need...this stuff is also great when it comes in contact with fried potatoes of any sort.

[Doodad]

This is far from a refined sauce, but it has a visceral appeal that's pretty unbeatable.

Get yourself some anchovies and roast maybe half a head of garlic until brown and smushy.  Using a mortar and pestle of foos processor, grind the garlic and the anchovy into a paste.  In the mean time, boil down a good bit of demi glace and a big slug of red wine.  Add about 2/3 of the garlic anchovy paste, taste and adjust as needed -- adding more demi-glace, or paste or whatever seems good.  Drizzle in a little red wine vinegar and finish with butter.  Make more than you need...this stuff is also great when it comes in contact with fried potatoes of any sort.

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Cool, thanks for that. I am roasting plantains for one of the sides. Not sure what else yet.

[Busboy]

Since you're going with the plantain thing, when I get home from work I'll try to dig up the tamarind "bbq sauce" recipe we use when we're getting our Latin fusion thing going. We live in a heavily Salvadoran neighborhood, so tamarind bars (or whatever they're called) are readily available and we prefer red beans, but any legume will sit well with the steak and plantains. A little crema centroamericana on the side works well, too.

Edited to add: This is based on a Gray Kunz recipe, if you have access to The Elements of Taste

We use about half a package of tamarind paste (about a cup), two or three whole canned tomatoes a handful of rough-cut ginger, honey to taste and roasted, ground coriander and cumin (you can just use regular old C&C, but if you can roast and grinf it, it's worth the effort). You can also add in a touch of hot pepper flakes and a handful of chopped fresh cilanto.

Basically, you throw everything in a pot, with enough warm water to loosen up the tamarind paste and simmer it until it reduces to a glaze, checking the flavors every now and then straining the whole mess and doing a final flavor adjustment. I assume that Kunz got into it because of Tamarind's Asian overtones, but I always think of it as Latin.

[ruthcooks]

This is far from a refined sauce, but it has a visceral appeal that's pretty unbeatable.

Get yourself some anchovies and roast maybe half a head of garlic until brown and smushy.  Using a mortar and pestle of foos processor, grind the garlic and the anchovy into a paste.  In the mean time, boil down a good bit of demi glace and a big slug of red wine.  Add about 2/3 of the garlic anchovy paste, taste and adjust as needed -- adding more demi-glace, or paste or whatever seems good.  Drizzle in a little red wine vinegar and finish with butter.  Make more than you need...this stuff is also great when it comes in contact with fried potatoes of any sort.

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How many anchovies? Sounds good.

[Doodad]

Since you're going with the plantain thing, when I get home from work I'll try to dig up the tamarind "bbq sauce" recipe we use when we're getting our Latin fusion thing going.  We live in a heavily Salvadoran neighborhood, so tamarind bars (or whatever they're called) are readily available and we prefer red beans, but any legume will sit well with the steak and plantains.  A little crema centroamericana on the side works well, too.

Edited to add: This is based on a Gray Kunz recipe, if you have access to The Elements of Taste

We use about half a package of tamarind paste (about a cup), two or three whole canned tomatoes  a handful of rough-cut ginger, honey to taste and roasted, ground coriander and cumin (you can just use regular old C&C, but if you can roast and grinf it, it's worth the effort).  You can also add in a touch of hot pepper flakes and a handful of chopped fresh cilanto. 

Basically, you throw everything in a pot, with enough warm water to loosen up the tamarind paste and simmer it until it reduces to a glaze, checking the flavors every now and then straining the whole mess and doing a final flavor adjustment.  I assume that Kunz got into it because of Tamarind's Asian overtones, but I always think of it as Latin.

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How did you know I was the kind of guy who had tamarind paste?

[Busboy]

Who else matches hanger steaks with plantains?

[rooftop1000]

Skirt steak with plantains just won a competition on the Food Network....

T

[k43]

I usually pour off most of the fat, deglaze with a splash of vermouth and then add a splash of cognac and flame it. The floral addition from the vermouth and the implicit sweetness from the cognac is particularly good with skirt or hanger steak.

[Busboy]

This is far from a refined sauce, but it has a visceral appeal that's pretty unbeatable.

Get yourself some anchovies and roast maybe half a head of garlic until brown and smushy.  Using a mortar and pestle of foos processor, grind the garlic and the anchovy into a paste.  In the mean time, boil down a good bit of demi glace and a big slug of red wine.  Add about 2/3 of the garlic anchovy paste, taste and adjust as needed -- adding more demi-glace, or paste or whatever seems good.  Drizzle in a little red wine vinegar and finish with butter.  Make more than you need...this stuff is also great when it comes in contact with fried potatoes of any sort.

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How many anchovies? Sounds good.

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Personal taste, but I usually put in a lot -- 6 0r 8, anyway. If you get a tube of anchovy paste you can adjust it pretty precisely.