Ultimate Steak de Burgo

I talked to the publisher on the phone. A real phone call, a real person, a woman named Sarah in New York who said she loved the proposal and wants to see the full manuscript by December. December. Eight months to write a book about my life in recipes. Eight months to turn twenty-three years of truck cooking and thirteen years of mothering and five years of blogging into something that has a cover and a spine and sits on a shelf. The shelf part terrifies me. The writing part does not. The writing is just the doing, and the doing is what I know.

Sarah asked me what the book was about, in one sentence. I said, 'A truck driver who cooks in her cab and named a diner after her dead sister, but the diner doesn't exist yet.' She said, 'That's not one sentence, that's a book.' I said, 'I know.' She said, 'Write that book.' I said, 'I will.' The conversation was four minutes long and changed everything, and the everything changed in four minutes, which is how everything changes — not slowly, not gradually, but in a phone call, in a sentence, in the space between 'what's it about' and 'write that book.'

I told Dave. He said, 'That's good, Brenda.' From Dave, that is a Broadway musical, a fireworks display, a symphony orchestra. He asked if I needed anything. I said time. He said, 'I'll handle the mornings.' He meant breakfast, school, the 6 a.m. chaos. He meant he would give me the hour between 5 and 6 to write. The hour is the gift. The hour is the book. Dave gave me the book by giving me the hour.

I made a celebration dinner: chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, cream gravy. The celebration dinner is always chicken fried steak because chicken fried steak is my love and my comfort and the meal that says: something good happened and I am honoring it with breaded meat and cream gravy. Tyler asked what we were celebrating. I said a phone call. He said that's a weird thing to celebrate. He is thirteen. He will understand when he is forty-three.

Chicken fried steak is my language for joy — it’s what I reach for when something good happens and I need the meal to say it out loud for me. But when I went to pull the round steak from the freezer that evening, I found the tenderloin Dave had tucked in there weeks ago for “a special occasion,” and I thought: if a four-minute call from a New York publisher isn’t a special occasion, nothing is. This Ultimate Steak de Burgo — seared hot, finished in garlic herb butter, the kind of steak that makes Tyler forget he’s thirteen and too cool to be impressed — is the recipe I turned to instead, and it was exactly right.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

4 beef tenderloin steaks (about 6 oz each, 1-inch thick)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 cup dry white wine or low-sodium beef broth
1 tablespoon fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped (for garnish)

Instructions

Season the steaks. Pat steaks dry with paper towels. Season both sides generously with kosher salt and black pepper. Let them sit at room temperature for 10 minutes while you prep the remaining ingredients.
Sear the steaks. Heat olive oil and 2 tablespoons of the butter in a heavy skillet (cast iron preferred) over medium-high heat until the butter foams and subsides. Add steaks and sear without moving for 3–4 minutes per side for medium-rare, or until they reach your desired doneness. Transfer steaks to a plate and tent loosely with foil.
Build the herb butter sauce. Reduce heat to medium. Add the remaining 4 tablespoons butter to the same skillet. Once melted, add the minced garlic and cook, stirring, for about 60 seconds until fragrant but not browned.
Add the herbs and deglaze. Stir in the basil, oregano, and thyme. Pour in the white wine or beef broth, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Let the sauce simmer for 2–3 minutes until slightly reduced.
Finish and serve. Return the steaks to the skillet and spoon the herb butter sauce over them for about 1 minute to warm through and coat. Plate the steaks, pour any remaining pan sauce over the top, and garnish with fresh parsley. Serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Ultimate Steak de Burgo — The Celebration Dinner I Cook When Everything Changes