I have a confession – I didn’t follow the recipe. What I ended up making was something similar but really quite different. The original recipe is from the Cook’s Country magazine and is posted below. What I did, and what we thought of it, is in the notes following the recipe.

Pepper-Crusted Steak w/Worcestershire-Butter Sauce
 Serves 4

4 strip steaks (8-10 ounces each), about 1 inch thick
Salt
1 tablespoon coarsely ground pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 shallot, minced
½ cup red wine
½ cup low sodium chicken broth
¼ cup Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Directions: Pat the steaks dry with paper towels and season with salt. Rub one side of each steak with pepper. Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat until just smoking. Place steaks with peppered side down in skillet and cook until well browned on both sides. 3 to 5 minutes per side. Transfer to plate and tent with foil.

Add shallot to empty skillet and cook until softened, about 1 minute. Add wine, broth, Worcestershire, and thyme and simmer, scraping up browned bits with wooden spoon, until reduced by half, about 5 minutes. Add accumulated steak juices back to pan, whisk in better, and season with salt. Pour sauce over steaks. Serve.

Notes: So I had a steak in the fridge that could serve 4 easily so I used that instead of going to buy more steak. I didn’t want to pan fry the steak as it was thicker than the suggested 1 inch, and didn’t want to use oil on it so I followed the directions up to putting oil in a skillet. I also peppered both sides as we love pepper at our house.

For the sauce – I didn’t have red wine and I hated the thought of using chicken stock with beef. Instead I only 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 cup of low fat/low sodium beef broth. The sauce was much like an au jus and quite tasty.

Overall I think I’ll hang onto the sauce part of the recipe with my adjustments. I’m glad I put pepper on both sides and the sauce was nice to use instead of our family standard of A1™.

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