Steak with Stroganoff Sauce

I had this for dinner about 10 days ago - absolutely delicious. Again I divided the sauce recipe by 4 (because there is only one of me) and I reduced the cream content to about 1 teaspoon. If you use the cream as described, the sauce will be much lighter in color than mine. My steak was also smaller than the recipe suggested. I served my steak with an undressed big salad rather than the pickled red cabbage combination in the recipe for no other reason than that is what I had in the fridge.

4 x 200 g scotch fillet steaks
1 Tablespoon crushed black peppercorns
Sea salt
1 Tablespoon olive oil
20 g unsalted butter
Pickled red cabbage, watercress or other salad leaves and mustard, to serve

Stroganoff Sauce
25 g unsalted butter
400 g small Swiss brown mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 garlic, crushed
1/2 Cup brandy
300 ml beef stock
1 teaspoon Vegemite
200 ml thickened cream
1 Tablespoon finely chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves

Season the steak with the salt and pepper.

Heat the olive oil and butter in a large frypan over medium-high heat. When sizzling, add the steaks to the pan. Cook each steak for 2 minutes each side for medium-rare or until cooked to your liking. Transfer to a plate. Loosely cover with foil and rest while making the sauce.

For the Stroganoff sauce, return the steak pan to medium heat and add the butter. When melted, add the thinly sliced mushrooms and the garlic and cook for 4 minutes, stirring, or until mushrooms have softened. Add the brandy and cook for a further 1 minute or until most of the liquid has evaporated. Add the beef stocl, Vegemite and thickened cream, then reduce heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes until the sauce has reduced. Remove from heat and stir int he parsley.

Divide the steaks among 4 plates, ladle over the Stroganoff suce and serve with pickled cabbage, salad leaves and mustard.

From: Delicious August 2008, pg 92