Worth a Sunday sit-down
A creamy mushroom sauce makes this skirt steak recipe worth slowing down to savor
On occasion, I still like to make a “Sunday” dinner. Not like the ones I remember from decades ago with a mountain of golden fried chicken, creamy potato salad, green beans and rolls. These often are less ambitious meals, but they still have that little something extra — that spin that makes you want to set the table, pull out the matching napkins, maybe light a candle and open a bottle of the good wine.
I don’t always wait for Sunday either. I use the term to describe meals that deliver a fullstop, sit-down and enjoy-the-food supper.
What sets these meals apart is the extra effort that goes into at least one dish. The creamed mushroom sauce that I recently spooned atop humble skirt steak is a perfect example of what I’m talking about.
I found the mushrooms, appropriately enough, in the cookbook “Sunday Dinners: Food, Family and Faith from Our Favorite Pastors” (Andrew McMeel Publishing, 2013) by Diane Cowen, who gathered recipes from 13 pastors.
The mushrooms came from Matthew and Caroline Barnett of Angelus Temple and the Dream Center in Los Angeles. Caroline Barnett says of Sunday dinner, “There’s something about sitting around the table and talking about your day. It puts a reset button on your life.”
That’s it exactly. Too often, dinner is something we gobble down after work and
before whatever else comes next that evening — more work, homework with the kids, laundry or another Zoom call.
So, every now and then, when I stumble across a particularly tasty dish, I use it as an excuse, or a prompt, to re-assess and slow down.
Here, a skirt steak is quickly seared with salt, pepper and herbs, giving you time to make a luscious sauce — even on a time-strapped weeknight.
Thinly sliced onions are sauteed with butter until just starting to caramelize. Sliced mushrooms and garlic are cooked until nearly dry and then sherry and cream are quickly stirred in. I took one taste and thought: Mmmmm. We are going to sit down and really enjoy this.
The rich sauce complements beef, but it would elevate a broiled chicken breast, taste great on pan-fried tofu or make you swoon atop homemade mashed potatoes.
Serve the sauced meat with your favorite green vegetable or a veg-filled salad, warm up a loaf of sourdough, sit down and enjoy.