Steak dinner with Insignia 2012 ステーキとインシグニア2012

We rarely eat steak. This time, on the strong recommendation from my wife’s sister, we got a “special”package from Omaha Steaks which included, among a lot of other things, filet mignon. (It was called “Butcher’s cut”. We are not sure where this cut ranks on their quality scale of steaks). In any case, an occasion called for a special dinner and wine. So we cooked the steak and opened 2012 Joseph Phelps Insignia. The package from Omaha Steaks also included scalloped potato (shown here lower right) which I served with the steak, caprese salad and sautéed green beans.

The steak was first cooked in sous vide. After thawing, I patted the meat dry, seasoned with salt and pepper and vacuum packed with pats of butter and sprigs of fresh rosemary. I sous vide at 130F for 3 hours (minimum of 1.5 hours) for medium rare. Just before, serving I seared both sides briefly and set aside. I made a quick pan sauce by deglazing the pan with port wine, a dash of balsamic vinegar. I added any meat juice accumulated in the sous vide bags and on the plate on which the steaks were resting. After the liquid reduced in half, I added pats of butter and seasoned it with salt and pepper. Since this was sous vide cooked, the inside of the steaks were uniformly pink (as shown in the following picture). The steak was flavorful but a bit chewy/sinewy especially for filet mignon but we enjoyed it and the scalloped potatoes were great.

 

I checked our wines and decided to go with the oldest Insignia vintage we had which was 2012. I opened the bottle one hour prior to the planned dinner and decanted it. 

The wine was excellent. It was not too aged with nice dark fruit, vanilla and chocolate and well structured but mellowed tannin. In general we are not a great fans of old wines but this was just nicely aged for us to enjoy.

The steak and wine went as well as expected i.e. wonderful. We think we commemorated this special occasion adequately.

As an aside: The “special” we got from Omaha Steaks was quite a “haul” and included a number of items in addition to the steaks and scalloped potatoes. They were: hamburgers, meat balls, hot dogs, chicken fried steak, pork chops, chicken breast and apple pie.  We do not even remember when was the last time we ate hamburger or hotdogs so this should be interesting as we taste these additional items. I may have to commission my wife to bake some hamburger and hotdog buns.