Steak in a Red Wine - Balsamic Reduction

So I figured I'd start this year's menu with a bit of a bang. I love cooking with wine but I just don't do it very often. I was craving red meat this morning at the store so I grabbed some "tender cuts" that were on sale. Obviously we don't have a ton of money for me to throw around at fillets and whatnot, so I'll make due with what I have access to.

I don't have a total recipe for this since I tend to make things up as I go along. Plus, I'm cooking for 2 adults and a child, so I alter amounts. I hoped on Pinterest earlier to get a basic recipe for a red wine and balsamic reduction sauce and found one. I didn't use it exactly, but it's nice to have a frame of reference for quantities.

I started out with my steaks (4 - 6ish oz steaks). First, you have to take them out of the fridge and get them warming up to room temperature. If you put them into the hot pan while still cold, they'll seize up and get super tough. I let mine sit out for about 45 minutes. While you're letting them set, go ahead and season them. Because the sauce is going to be so incredibly flavorful, you don't' want to go crazy with the seasonings. I just used sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and some garlic powder.


While my steak was setting, I started my roasted potatoes. There's something about steak and potatoes that just goes. However, I didn't want just mashed potatoes or something like that. It's not much work to get an impressive and delicious side dish.

Take some red potatoes and cut them up into chunks. I just quartered mine because they were on the smaller side. Throw them into a bowl and toss them with some olive oil, sea salt, black pepper, garlic powder, parsley and rosemary. Pour it out onto a foil lined baking pan. Bake them at 450 degrees for 30 minutes.

There's your side dish. I also threw some broccoli in my steamer to get some green on the plate. Nothing fancy.

Back to the meat...

After the potatoes have been in the oven for about 10 minutes, put your steaks into a HOT (lightly sprayed with oil) pan that's on medium to medium high heat. Let them cook for 5 minutes on each side. Take them out and put them onto a plate with foil over the top to keep warm.

Now for the fun part... the reduction.

Put about a tablespoon of butter into the pan that the meat just came out of and add your onion (I prefer shallots but I didn't have any so I used the white part of a couple green onions... you get a similar effect). Saute the onion until it's softened then add in about 3/4 cups of red wine. We had really good wine in the house but seriously, you're cooking with it so just use the crappy stuff. It's not classy, but boxed wine works well, plus it stores easily for other uses. After the wine, add in about a 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar. Whisk it all to combine and let it cook down. If your wine is really dry, you can dissolve a teaspoon of sugar into the sauce. It will reduce to about half of it's original amount and will take about 10 minutes.

By the time your reduction is done, your potatoes should be coming out of the oven.

Put the steaks back into the pan with the sauce and turn them over so they're covered. Plate up your deliciousness and drizzle some extra reduction sauce over the top of your steak and dig in!

This meal was a complete win. Isaac, my 3-year old, cleaned his plate and my husband didn't use ranch on his meat. If you know him at all, you know this is something that rarely, if ever, happens. The meat was tender and juicy, the potatoes were crispy and the sauce was the perfect compliment. This will be made again.