Eat, Drink, and Go!

I had to make a dish that could stand up to a very fancy beer we bought over the weekend. By fancy, I mean really pricey, but it was worth it – Dogfish Head’s Oak Aged Vanilla World Wide Stout.

Yes, it’s a mouthful, but a mouthful of deliciously dark, sweet, rich, stout. So naturally, steaks and stouts came to mind. Not just because of the the alliteration. I picked up some sirloin cut to look like filet and kicked things off.

This was pretty simple, as you can see, just a few ingredients. I had a feel for some roasted mushrooms as well, so I started with them. I used baby bellas. They can cook for a while.

I tossed them in some smoke olive oil from Lebherz Oil and Vinegar Emporium (I love that it abbreviated to “LOVE” because I love their oils and vinegars!!) and added some smoked sea salt from Saltworks.

Then I chopped up a few cloves of fresh garlic and added about half of the choppings, saving the rest for some steamed kale. I tossed the shrooms around and the spread them on a baking sheet.

Popped them in the oven to roast while I made everything else. I decided to make a bed of kale for the steaks so I got that going too with some of the smoked olive oil, the rest of the fresh chopped garlic, smoked salt, and a little vanilla infused balsamic.

Cover and simmer. Wrapping things in bacon is only tricky because sometimes it takes the bacon longer to cook than the food it’s wrapping, so I par-seared the bacon prior to the wrapping. I’m not sure if par-sear is a word, but it means to partly cook pan style, like par boil is to partly cook boil style. Anyways…

Now onto the steaks. I patted them dry and let the bacon cool just enough to be able to handle.

Wrap one strip of bacon around the steak and fix with a toothpick.

I sprinkled a little smoked sea salt on top and got them into the pan to sear, searing both sides.

Then I popped them in the oven to finish, no more than 10 minutes at 375 if you want them medium rare.

The shrooms, kale, and steaks all finished up at the same time, which is always my goal when making a multi-part dish. I laid down the kale bed.

Set a steak on top, and scattered some shrooms.

I drizzled on some of L.O.V.E.’s Vanilla Balsamic vinegar.

This I thought would work great to add a little hint of vanilla to the dish I was pairing with the vanilla stout.

And there you have it! A great pairing of steak and stout. For an inside look at the steak…ooo