Any Guy's Food Blog

Butte Creek Porter is from Deschutes Brewery in Bend, Oregon. Deschutes Brewery is easily one of the best breweries on the west coast. This month we should see at least one more selection from them, but we'll look at that later. Butte Creek Porter is a smokey, nutty porter with light carbonation and an underlying sweetness. I tasted a Guinness-Black Butte Porter last weekend and it was an amazing pair. It reminded me of a quality boilermaker without the black out and loss of memory. (Yes, there's a joke in there.)

The Process:

I toyed briefly with the idea of rubbing on a little brown sugar or molasses before pan-searing the steak, but I think there's enough sweetness in the beer and the onions. My preferred method of cooking steak is pan-searing. If you're a big fan of BBQ, you could use the beer as a marinade for about an hour before cooking. I also prefer to saute my mushrooms and/or onions after cooking a steak and in the same pan. I do this so that I can use the steak fat instead of butter. There are health and taste reasons for this. If you prefer to add a little butter, cool. Some people actually like to pan-sear their steak with butter. I am not one of these people, but definitely feel free to do so. If you have a good cut of steak, I feel that it's own fat is sufficient. As a last minute idea, I also decided to roast some garlic and use that with the veggies. Mushrooms, roasted garlic and onions? Yes, please!

Ingredients:

1 Bottle Deschutes Black Butte Porter
4-6 Crimini Mushrooms
1 Sweet Yellow Onion
1 Ribeye Steak (10-14 oz)
1 Bulb Garlic (Optional)
Preferred Seasonings

Directions:

Cut off the top of the garlic bulb. Pour a teaspoon or two of olive oil on the top. I have a garlic roaster, but you can just wrap the garlic in foil. Put in the oven at about 325 degrees F. Let the garlic roast for about 30 minutes or until golden brown and soft. (Sometimes my garlic cooks a bit faster, so keep an eye on it after about 20-25 minutes.) When the garlic is done, it should be easy to pop out of the cloves and put in a bowl.

Cut up your mushrooms and onions. With the mushrooms, I prefer to set them on the cutting board top down and slicing laterally. If the stems are too long, just trim them down to about the thickness of the cap. With the onion, cut off both ends then cut in half in the other direction. Set each half down and slice in the same direction as the cuts that took off the ends. This should yield onion strips. You may only need to use half. Set the garlic, mushrooms and onions aside.

In the pan, set to appropriate heat. I use setting 7 or 8 out of ten for medium-rare. You will want to use lower heat if you're cooking it medium to well and leave it on longer. Add about 1/4 a cup of porter to the pan. Sprinkle both sides of the steak with sea salt and black pepper (or your choice of seasonings). Drop in the pan and sear. This will take a little longer and little higher heat than if you had no beer at all. After about 4 minutes (for medium-rare) flip the steak and cook on the other side.

Once your steak is cooked as desired, put the steak on your plate. Add mushrooms, garlic and onions to the pan. Add another half cup of porter. Cook on high until most of the beer evaporates. By this point, the mushrooms and onions should be soft and brown. You should have a little broth left made of reduced porter and steak fat. Cover the top of your steak with your mushrooms and onions and pour a little of the broth on top.

Bam! Dinner!

Recap:
1) Roast Garlic
2) Cut Veggies
3) Cook Steak with Beer then Remove
4) Cook Veggies in Steak Pan with Beer
5) Serve and Eat

Tasting Notes:

First of all, I put a little too much beer for cooking the steak medium-rare. I turned the heat up to high instead (9 out of 10 on my stove). Take care not to burn the beer if you do this. If you prefer rarer seared steak, you could also use your regular burner settings with even a little less beer.

Tasting a bite of steak alone, I have to say that porter is a PERFECT base for cooking the steak. The flavor pairs so well. Add the mushrooms and it really fleshes out the rest of the flavor.

When I do this again, I will use two bulbs of garlic instead of just one with the amount of onions and mushrooms that I used.

On my personal cooking scale, I'd give this plate a 9. I'm really happy with how my lead off recipe turned out. I will definitely cook this again.