On Valentine’s Day, my sweetheart and I were playing poker.  Celebration delayed can be enormously sweet.  This is our Valentine’s Day dinner 3 days later.  The wine of course is not Paleo, or Low Carb.  It was a wonderful fun pairing with our beautiful steak and salad.  IMHO the best sauce for steak is from French cuisine.  I have 2 French cook books by Julia Child, one is a 1968 copy of  “The French Chef Cookbook” which was my mother’s. The other book is from 2010  “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”, a gift from my husband.  For further reference I have a 1979 copy of  “The New York Times 60-Minute Gourmet” by Pierre Franey.  Sometimes there are just nuances you can pick up from old cook books, including the dog eared pages and underlining.  After my research however I decided to make my own sauce which is; Paloe, Low Carb and Gluten Free.  I did pan sear the meat pretty much as described in the cook books, but with a heavy addition of garlic butter.

Sauce for pan seared steaks

•  2 Cups beef bone broth, made from grass-fed beef bones see recipe  Bone Broth or Stock
• 2-3 tablespoons arrowroot
• 4 bella mushrooms sliced & sautéed
•  pan drippings
•  1/3 cup  filtered water

Simmer broth down, reducing by half.  Blend 2 tablespoons arrowroot with 1/3 cup  filtered water. I just shake it up in a jar.  Add to broth, simmer to thicken as desired.  Add more arrowroot if needed.  Stir in sautéed mushrooms. Keep warm, occasionally stir .  After cooking the steaks, add to pan drippings.  If you need to de-fat the drippings, a simple way to get most the fat out is to use as baster and suck it out.  Taste how much more flavor the meat drippings have given the sauce.

Garlic butter  (2 steak serving)

• 6-8 parsley leaves
• 2-3 garlic cloves
• 1/4 cup sweet butter from pastured cows, not treated with hormones, or antibiotics, organic nonGMO best
• pinch of unrefined sea salt

Best made ahead.  Bring butter to room temperature.  Add finely chopped parsley.  Press garlic, add along with salt.  Mix well.

Preparing and Searing the Steak

• one 3/4 inch thick grass-fed ribeye steak
• 1 teaspoon cooking oil, peanut, coconut, olive, lard, make sure it can take the heat.
• unrefined sea salt
• cracked black pepper
• Garlic butter * see recipe above

Pat steaks dry.  Sprinkle lightly with unrefined sea salt.  Bring meat to room temperature.  Press in cracked black pepper corns.  Heat cast iron skillet to just below smoking hot. Smear one side of steak with garlic butter.  Add about 1 teaspoon of cooking oil to pan.  Place steak in skillet butter side up.  Cook 2-4 minutes.  Flip steak over, do not pierce it with a fork.  Cook 2-3 minutes.  Place on a warm plate, let the meat rest 5 minutes or so while you add the sauce to the pan juices.  Heat up, scraping bits stuck to the pan, these tid-bits are flavor bombs for the sauce.  After letting the meat rest 5 minutes, if you slice and find it’s under cooked to your taste.  Reheat pan and give it 1-2 or minutes on each side.  You can cook the meat a little more, but you can’t undo over cooking.  Pour the sauce over steak.  Enjoy!