Saturday Night Feast: ‘Côte de boeuf’ w/ ragout of snails, baked garlic cloves and parsley

This is a little more complicated and it is a dinner for guests. I chose to call these dinners for SATURDAY NIGHT FEASTS. Cote de Boeuf is served with Ragout of Snails, Baked Garlic and parsley, sauté of vegetables, potato pure with truffles and red wine sauce.

From time to time I will be presenting a ‘Saturday Gourmet Dinner’ with the sole purpose of impressing friends and family with your newly acquired skills in the kitchen. Here, no expenses are spared, time is not a matter and usually you would be able to pull this off while your wife is getting herself and the kids ready to receive company – so a couple of hours well spent. And a word of advice: If your wife is like any other wife on the continent she will ‘help’ you and offer to substitute ingredients so do the shopping on your own.

Serves 4 people

Ingredients:

1½ lbs of beef sirloin
1 cup red wine
¼ cup balsamic vinegar
2 cups beef or veal broth
4 oz snails (from a can if needed)
25 cloves of garlic
1 ‘bouquet’ wide-leafed parsley - chopped
1 ‘bouquet’ scallions
1 ‘bouquet’ baby carrots
4 oz sugar peas
1 lb of peeled baking potatoes
½ cup of cooking cream
1 oz fresh truffles (mushroom)
1½ oz of truffle oil
Sea salt, fresh ground pepper
Olive oil

Grind some salt and pepper on the sirloin. Brown it in oil on a hot pan so it becomes a little crusty. Roast it in a pre-heated oven at 400F for about 12 minutes. Take it from the oven and let it sit for about 15 minutes.

Red wine sauce:
Pour the red wine and balsamic in a casserole. Let it reduce until about ¼ cup remains. Pour in the broth and let the sauce boil down to half the size. Adjust flavor with salt and pepper.

Ragout of snails, baked garlic cloves and parsley:
Bake the cloves in the pre-heated oven (400F) with a little bit of olive oil for about 15 minutes, Put in the snails and parsley and stir it abound a little. Add salt and pepper. Continue baking it for additional 5 minutes.

Vegetable sauté:
Rinse and cut the scallions a skew in one inch sizes. Clean the baby carrots and cut them lengthy in half. Rinse the sugar peas. Put them in a hot pan with some olive oil, salt and pepper for 5-7 minutes or until they have the consistency you desire. Try not to over cook so the carrots get mushy.

Potato puree with truffles:
Boil the potatoes until tender in water with no salt. Strain the potatoes and let them dry. Pure them with a hand held mixer. Add boiling cream and stir it in. Add finely chpooed truffels, truffle oil, salt and pepper. Put the potato puree in a piping bag (the kind you use for decorating cakes) and decorate the heated serving plates with the potato puree.

Serving suggestion:
On heated dinner plates put slices of the Cote de boeuf with the warm ragout of snails, garlic cloves and parsley with the vegetable sauté and potato pure. Surround the dish with a line red wine sauce.

TIP: You can make your own broth if you have the time. Take whatever fat and bits of meat you don’t want on the sirloin and brown in a large pot with butter. Put in a quartered onion, carrots with the tops, a couple of garlic cloves and whatever vegetables you have (not potato, as it makes the broth unclear). Add a bottle of red wine and the same amount of water. Let it simmer without lid for 3-4 hours (the longer the better). Strain it and use the broth for the sauce taking about 1½ cups and reduce it to about half the amount. Save the rest of the broth (freeze it of your have to, because you’ll need it)

DINNER – by Dad is served.