Ground Beef Steak with Portobello, Asparagus and a Caper-Balsamic Cream Sauce

Prep: 7 mins | Cook: 8 min | Total: 15 mins | Servings:2

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This recipe is part of a blog post on quick meals. I also think it’s a perfect recipe for something along the lines of a one-pan meal. Granted, you’d need a huge pan to make two of these and two huge pans to make 4 dinners, but the bones, style and merit of this recipe are all based in a quick meal. Here is a photo of the ingredients I used to make this recipe: I do apologize for the shoddy iPhone photo. It was a last-minute decision and not something I ordinarily do, but I liked the idea that it completely captures the ingredients I used, in their precise state, at the moment I began. This is how long it took for me to make this dish, from the photo ... to the completed dish in the main recipe photos. Keep in mind that during this time, I formed the steak, peeled the mushroom, cooked everything, made the sauce and served it. There’s a bit going on and I was definitely racing, but the end result is attractive, varied and VERY tasty! Give it a shot! Note: Photo doesn’t have salt, pepper or cooking fat, but... it’s there. Make sure you have it.

Method:

1. Assemble all your equipment, as well as all the ingredients and place them close to your working space.
2. Place 1 very large or two medium sized nonstick sauté pans on the stove over medium heat. Allow them to preheat.
3. Form your ground beef into two equal pucks. Thicker pucks will take a bit longer to cook, but will be harder to overcook and maintain some juice. Thinner and wider pucks will cook faster and are easier to cook to a well-done state. Season both sides with a nice even coat of salt and pepper.
4. Add butter to pan and quickly swirl around to coat pan.
5. Before the butter burns, gently place each puck into the hot sauté pan, making sure to leave room for the mushrooms and asparagus spears. Leave the beef to sit for about 3 minutes in the pan, without touching them. Let them sear.
6. Remove the stem from the mushrooms. I just pull them out, but you can use a knife, if you’d like.
7. This next step isn’t required, but I tend to like doing it when I’m feeling fancy. If you look at the bottom of the mushrooms, you’ll see dark brown ribs, leading up to the edge of the umbrella, where there’s typically some kind of thin edge where the top meets the ribs. Grab this delicate edge and pull up over the top of the mushroom. You should easily peel a 1-inch strip of skin from the top of the mushroom cap. Continue going around the top of the cap, continuing to peel it. This will leave a nice white top. Then, with a knife or spoon, scrape the ribs or gills off from underneath the mushroom. The thinking, here, is that things, dirt, bugs, etc. can get trapped in the gills. Best to just clean the whole thing up!
8. Move the steaks around the pan. This should release some of the beef fat into the pan. Chances are, you want to flip the steaks, too.
9. Place the mushrooms in the pan, rubbing them in the fat in the pan, to coat them. Season them with a little salt and pepper and let them sit there, cooking with the steaks.
10. Remove the thick fibrous stem ends of the asparagus spears. I typically cut off the top 4-inch and save the stems for soup or compost, but you can also snap them like a pencil. The natural snapping point is often considered the perfect spot to separate the nice sweet tops from the harder fibrous stems.
11. Once the asparagus spears are cleaned, add them to the remaining space in the pan or pans. Roll them around in the fat and juices, then season with a bit of salt and pepper.
12. Flip the mushrooms and season the other side. Around this time, turn the heat up high.
13. While the pan cooks the ingredients, chop your capers and fresh oregano. Measure out your cream and vinegar. Have all this sitting and ready to go.
14. After about 2 minutes of cooking, flip the steaks and mushrooms again. Toss the asparagus around. Wait about 1 more minute.
15. On a plate, place 1 mushroom cap. On top of each cap, place half the asparagus. At this point, the steaks should still be in the pan.
16. Add the vinegar to the pan and swirl around with the steaks. Quickly add the cream, capers and chopped oregano. Swirl around over high heat, while allowing the sauce to reduce and thicken. Season with a bit of salt and pepper.
17. Once the steaks are cooked through, place them on top of the vegetables on the plates.
18. Taste the sauce in the pan. Adjust seasoning, if it needs it. When it’s nice and thick (this should happen quickly in a hot pan), pour the sauce over the top of the steaks.
19. Enjoy!

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