Comfort food steak

I've said it once and I'll say it again: this book is fantastic. Sometimes I have to wing it because my small town grocery store doesn't have many specialty ingredients, and I bought a whole $5 jar of sundried tomatoes for this singular recipe, but it was totally worth it and has been for every recipe I've made from this book.

On to the recipe. Coming back to work after the long weekend was rough, to say the least. I needed something to ease the pain and what better solution than steak? I rounded out my meal with some homemade smashed potatoes, a garden salad (as in, from my mom's garden) and an ice cold beer. Needless to say, I feel much better now.

DEVILED STEAKS WITH SMASHED POTATOES

1 serving

Smashed potatoes
1-2 baby red potatoes, scrubbed
1 Tbsp. milk or cream
2 Tbsp. white cheese (I used mozzarella)
1 Tbsp. butter

Deviled steak
1 Tbsp. canola oil
1 Tbsp. butter
1 good quality steak (I used flank)
2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup red wine
4 Tbsp. beef stock
1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
1 tsp. crushed fennel seeds
1 Tbsp. chopped sun-dried tomatoes
a bit of dried chipotle pepper, chopped
salt and pepper

1. Roughly chop the potatoes and put in a pot with water to cover them. Bring to a boil and cook 10-15 minutes or until soft.
2. When the potatoes are cooked, drain them, add the milk, cheese and butter, cover to keep warm and set aside.
3. Heat the oil and butter over med-high heat. Add steak and cook to desired doneness. My suggestion: rare. As my Louisianian friend says, "All white people like their meat rare." Live up to your potential! Eat rare steak!
4. Remove steak from pan, season with salt and pepper and keep warm.
5. In the steak-frying pan, add the vinegar, wine and stock. Bring to a boil.
6. Add garlic, fennel seeds, tomatoes and chipotle pepper and simmer until syrupy. When the sauce is close to done, pour any drippings from the steak into the pan.
7. Mash the potatoes roughly with a fork.
8. Drizzle the red wine sauce over the potatoes and steak.

"Drizzled" sauce is a bit of an understatement.