Saveur (April 2012)
When we saw the big honkin' steak on the cover of the April Saveur, we swooned.
But when we saw the two steak sauces on page 83, we got to work.
This is Saveur's Las Vegas issue. To be perfectly honest, when it comes to Vegas, we could pretty much take it or leave it. We've visited a handful of times. The highlights: We saw Wayne Newton perform (danke schoen, Wayne); we went to Le Reve, which is the only Cirque du Soleil-type show we've ever seen; we went to the Grand Canyon (which was the highlight of our Vegas trip). Though we're sorta meh on Sin City in general, we enjoyed this issue of Saveur, especially the feature showing all the food-plate photos from different buffets.
But these two steak sauces have us aching to go back to Vegas.
The first, a Black Pepper-Horseradish Zabaglione, is from Carnevino, from Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich. The second is a Miso-Mustard Butter Sauce, and it's from Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Prime Steakhouse. Both of the sauces have us half on our way to booking a flight to the Strip.
Let's start with the zabaglione. Typically, zabaglione is a custardy dessert made from whipped egg yolks. (You may be more familiar with the French name, "sabayon.") But Batali's savory version gets a zingy kick from horseradish.
We had a little trouble getting the zabaglione, to be honest. The one thing you don't want to do is scramble your eggs. (That's why this is done over a double-boiler on medium heat.) Well, on the first batch of yolks, that's exactly what we did. They weren't over the heat 30 seconds before the yolks started to scramble. Bah.
We dumped the first batch of egg yolks and started over on even lower heat. They still scrambled ever so slightly, but we decided to go with it. So our finished zabaglione was perhaps a little less silky than intended, but we weren't about to dump out another half-dozen eggs.
In the end, the zabaglione was all about the horseradish. It tasted just 100% like horseradish. We're not complaining. We love horseradish! And it was a nice sauce to pair with steak.
But the Miso-Mustard Butter Sauce? This we need to talk about.
It's gooood. Like, really good. Really, really good. Incredibly good. Like, it's one of those things that just gets better and better the more you taste it.
The Miso-Mustard Butter Sauce is a really unique mix of flavors -- savory hits of soy sauce and miso, spicy kicks from smoked paprika and mustard powder, citrus notes from lime and sweet undertones from kecap manis (an Indonesian sweet soy sauce that, interestingly, is a cognate of "ketchup." We couldn't find any, but we read you can sub in a combination of soy sauce and brown sugar, or soy sauce and molasses, which is what we did.).
This sauce is absolutely delicious, and unlike anything we'd ever tried before. To quote our friend Ed, who we had over when we served this, it tastes like it would be just as good over ice cream as on a steak.
We may have to try that, but in the meantime, we're loving the Miso-Mustard Butter Sauce paired with a big juicy steak. (If you need a steak recipe, Saveur has one that looks awfully good.)
Give it a try -- we think you'll be blown away.
Black Pepper-Horseradish Zabaglione
Saveur (April 2012)
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(This photo: Saveur/Todd Coleman)
Makes about 1 cup
Note from Zach and Clay of The Bitten Word:
- Our egg yolks scrambled even over medium heat. We'd recommend keeping the heat on low. It may take slightly longer, but it will keep your zabaglione from scrambling.
INGREDIENTS
2 tablespoons marsala wine
6 egg yolks
1/3 cup freshly grated or prepared horseradish
2 teaspoons kosher salt
freshly cracked black peppercorns, to taste
DIRECTIONS
Pour enough water into a 4-quart saucepan to reach a depth of 1 inch; bring to a boil over medium heat. Place marsala and egg yolks in a medium-size metal, nonreactive bowl, and whisk until smooth. Place bowl over the saucepan of simmering water. Whisking constantly, cook the yolks and wine together until pale and foamy and a ribbon forms on the surface of the foam when the mixture falls from the whisk, about 7 minutes.
Remove bowl from heat; stir in horseradish, salt and a generous seasoning of pepper.
Miso-Mustard Butter Sauce
Saveur (April 2012)
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(This photo: Saveur/Todd Coleman)
Makes about 1 1/2 cups
Note from Zach and Clay of The Bitten Word:
- If you don't have access to kecap manis, you can substitute a combination of soy sauce and molasses.
INGREDIENTS
1/3 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup white miso
2 teaspoons dry mustard powder
1 teaspoon kecap manis (sweet soy sauce)
1/4 teaspoon smoked sweet paprika
Zest of 1 lime
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, cubed and chilled
DIRECTIONS
In a 2-quart saucepan, whisk together soy sauce, miso, mustard, kecap manis, paprika, zest, salt and pepper, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
Remove from heat and slowly add butter, a few cubes at a time. Whisk constantly until smooth and all butter is incorporated; season with salt and pepper before serving over steaks.
