Food: Pan seared beef tenderloin steaks

The fanciest-sounding dish I make is a pan-seared beef tenderloin steak with a red wine reduction sauce.  What's hilarious about this is that it is incredibly easy to make if you have a basic knowledge of cooking, and it tastes amazing.  It's a little expensive if you use actual tenderloin instead of sirloin, but it's worth the expense if you want a flavorful, tender, medium-rare steak.

To make this dish you need:

• 1 beef tenderloin steak per person eating
• 2 shallots, minced
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• about a tablespoon fresh rosemary, minced
• 2 cups red wine (or thereabouts - I just pour from the bottle)
• 1 heaping teaspoon beef-flavored Better than Bouillon
• 2 tablespoons butter (unsalted)

First thing's first: get your steaks out and DRY them with a paper towel.  Wet beef will not brown properly.

Warm your pan to pretty hot.  Place the dry steaks in them.  Let them sit for a few minutes, or until you can feel the steak "release" from the pan.  Then flip and do the same thing on the other side.  Usually this takes about 5 minutes per side on my steaks, but it will depend on the thickness of your steak and how well-done you like things.  Regardless, make sure your steak has a nice golden brown crust on it before you flip it to the other side.

Once the steaks are done to your liking, remove them to a plate and cover them with foil.  You might have to pop them in the oven at 300 if you like a more well-done steak to finish them off.  This is up to you, not me.  I like mine pretty bloody.

Anyway - there will be a beautiful crusty accumulation on the bottom of your pan.  Throw in your 2 tbsp of butter and scrape this up with the butter.  Then throw in the shallots and garlic and rosemary and stir constantly until barely brown.  Then add the wine.  Keep scraping up the bits from the bottom of the pan.  Stir in the Better than Bouillon.  Bring to a boil and cook until the wine mixture is reduced by at least half.

Serve over the steaks.

Sorry no photos - I never have time to photograph what's going on while I cook this.  But try it.  You'll like it.