E

veryone loves a steak 
dinner, and it’s easy 
to make an elegant 
one in the quiet of your own 
kitchen. The 
trick is high 
heat for cooking 
the steak and 
having whatever 
ventilation 
solution your 
house contains 
active and 
kicking before you start 
cooking — the proper 

method will create a fair 
amount of smoke, but if 
you’re careful, you’ll get 
restaurant-quality steaks. 
 Get hold of a good meat 
thermometer and learn how 
fast your stove and pans cook 
a steak. Never rely solely on 
times, but rather use reliable 
metrics like temperatures. 
125 Fahrenheit is rare, 165 is 
well done, and the degrees of 
doneness go every 10 degrees 
of temperature in between.
Also, roasting vegetables 

like this concentrates their 
flavors and allows you to keep 
all the nutrients inside the 
food, rather than losing them 
to cooking water or poaching 

liquids. Radishes, when 
roasted, provide a pungency 
and funk that works well with 
the strong umami flavors of 
the mushrooms and steak.

Here’s to Steak 
and Potatoes

Chef Aaron 
Egan

FOOD
FROM THE HOME KITCHEN OF CHEF AARON 

STEAK WITH NEW 
POTATOES, ROASTED 
VEGETABLES AND 
MUSHROOM DEMI-
GLACE
Yield: 4 full plated servings 
of food

Ingredients
4 steaks of your choice
about 1 lb. salt-roasted new 
potatoes (recipe below)
1 bunch asparagus, trimmed
4 radishes, trimmed and 
quartered
4 small sweet peppers (shishito, 
sweet wax peppers, sweet mini-
bell peppers, etc.)
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 cup Mushroom Demi-Glace 
(recipe below)

Directions
1. Preheat an oven to 425°F. 
Heat a grill, grill pan, sauté 
pan or cast-iron skillet, and 
get ready to cook steaks 
in your preferred manner. 
Prepare the salt-roasted 
potatoes, as in the recipe 
that follows. 

They will take about 
30-45 minutes to cook, so 
go ahead and do this first.
2. Clean the asparagus, 
and trim and quarter the 
radishes.
3. Spread the asparagus, 
the quartered radishes and 
the peppers on a sheet 
tray covered with baking 
parchment or foil. Drizzle the 
vegetables with the oil and 
shift them around to coat 
evenly. Season well with 
salt and pepper, and roast 
for 10-15 minutes, checking 
frequently and shaking the 
pan to allow for more even 
browning.
4. Pat the steaks dry, 
season them liberally 
with salt and pepper, and 
cook them to your desired 
degree of doneness — use 
a good thermometer to 
check that they’re where 
you want them. This 
shouldn’t take more than 
10-15 minutes unless you 
got giant steaks that you 
want well done. Since 
there will be carry-over 

cooking, you’ll want to pull 
the steaks about 5 degrees 
from where you want them 
to be when they’re done. 
If you want medium-rare, 
135 Fahrenheit, you pull the 
steak off the grill at about 
130 or so, to account for 
carry-over.
5. When the steaks are 
done, pull them from the 
heat and let them rest on a 
plate or cutting board, for at 
least 5 minutes. Tent a piece 
of foil over them gently (we 
want to keep in heat, but 
not seal in steam so well we 
get condensation and lose 
our crust.)
6. When the vegetables 
are soft and lightly browned, 
remove them from the oven 
and set aside for plate-up. 
Similarly, take the potatoes 
out once they’re browned 
and cooked through (tender 
when poked with a paring 
knife.)
7. Plate up how you like 
it; I’d probably make a nice 
compact arrangement in 
the center of the plate with 

the demi-glace flooding 
the front and on top of the 
steak.

SALT-ROASTED 
NEW POTATOES
This preparation of potatoes 
is wildly simple, and creates 
a surprisingly flavorful result. 
You can smash the potatoes 
flat, let them cool and 
deep-fry them for a crispy 
presentation, or leave them 
whole and serve them with 
lots of flavorful olive oil, flaky 
sea salt and black pepper, 
and maybe some fresh 
herbs. 
Yield: 6-8 servings

Ingredients
2 lbs. fingerling potatoes
Kosher salt

Directions
1. Preheat an oven to 425°F. 
2. Pour a layer of salt on 
the bottom of a sheet pan 
or high-sided baking dish. 
You want at least an inch of 
salt on the pan. Spread the 
fingerling potatoes over the 

36 | MAY 12 • 2022 

