At the Evanston farmer’s market last week, Heartland Meats was selling some of their product. Normally I don’t pay a buck an ounce for meat, but I couldn’t resist trying a few of their sirloin steaks, cut from a Piedmontese cattle breed raised in Illinois. This meat is very tender, very lean, with good flavor, but it better be at $7.50 for an 8 oz. sirloin steak. With some chanterelle mushrooms and some bean thread cellophane noodles, this meat made an awesome meal.
I marinated the meat for only a half hour or so in some soup stock I had bought awhile ago from Mitsuwa. It’s a Hichifuku brand, made with white soy sauce, dried bonito, shitake and sweet sake. It’s salty, malty and mushroomy. While the steaks swam in the “Tokusen Ryotei Shirodashi Shiki-no Irodori”, I sauteed the chanterelles in some butter, and then made a quick sauce using the Hichifuku, some rice flour, more butter and some cream.
The steaks went into a very hot iron skillet to sear, and finished in a 350F oven for five minutes. These steaks cook in a third of the time because they’re so lean.
Plated over some bean thread cellophane noodles with some chives.