Minute Steak Experiment

When it comes to meat, we like ours to be natural, local and happy before being slaughtered and slapped on our dinner plates. We also like the grass fed variety. Bison naturally eat grass, so I don't really see the point in growing corn to feed to them. So, we found a farm nearby that has bison, and last year we purchased a quarter side. I don't really know what that means as far as the animal goes, and I don't like to think of which side the quarter was cut from, but it came out to a lot of bison meat. Half of it is ground, and we enjoy bison burgers. The other half is made up of a variety of steaks, and not having eaten much beef (in our adult lives), we are learning what all these terms (sirloin, t-bone, minute, chuck, etc.) mean. About half the steaks came in the minute variety, and now we are experimenting on how to use them.

We made fajitas (we got a cast iron fajita pan a few years ago- so we can eat it sizzlin'!) and the minute steak worked great for that, but they are in 1 lb. packages, and we only used 1/2 pound for the meal (plenty of meat for the 2 of us!) So, we had another 1/2 lb. in the fridge to use up, and I googled "minute steak recipe" and came up with this link which took me to "Keifer Sutherland's Minute Steak with Mushroom". I thought I'd give it a try, except of course, change a few things along the way....
So, I didn't have any fresh mushrooms, but last time I was at Trader Joe's I picked up a pack of dried mushrooms that included shittake, porcini, black, oyster, etc. I usually get dried shittakes from the local asian market, and I just rehydrate them in some water on the stove while I'm cooking. Well, since I had a package in English, I decided to read the directions and I learned that you are supposed to rinse the mushrooms before rehydrating them.... and I tried really hard not to think about all the shittakes I've eaten over the years shipped from Korea or Japan, and what I might have not been rinsing off of them.... I digress.

While the rinsed mushroom blend was plumping up, I fried the minute steaks in some butter on the cast iron fajita pan. The recipe says 2-3 minutes per side or until well browned. After 4-5 minutes blood was still oozing out of them (it's as gross as it sounds) but when I was satisfied, I set them aside and sauteed some onions on the pan. At this point, the kitchen was really smoky so I had to turn the vent fan on and my eyes were starting to burn (I always forget to do this until it's too late.)
The recipe calls for garlic, and-this is really rare- we were out! I put a bunch of garlic powder on it instead. Also, the recipe says "stir fry for one minute" after adding the onions. That's just ridiculous. I sauteed them proper. Then I added the shrooms and some flour and stirred it well. The shrooms were in some hot water, I took them out with a slotted spoon when I added them to the onions and I put 1/2 a vegetable bouillon cube in the shroom water and stirred it up well. (The recipe calls for 1/2 c beef stock and 1/2 red wine, so I improvised with shroom water and a bouillon cube, because I didn't want to open up a quart container of broth for 1/2 of a stupid cup and because we were drinking beer. Take that, Keifer.)

I dumped the onion/shroom mixture into the "stock" and added apricot jam. (The recipe calls for red currant or grape jelly, so I used what I had). Then you are supposed to bring it to a boil and stir it constantly until the gravy thickens. It wasn't really thickening for me, so I added some corn starch (So there, Iowa- despite our grass-fed bison, we ended up with corn in our meal after all!) It still didn't thicken too much, it was more of a watery gravy, but I added the steaks back, stirred it well, and let it sit for a few minutes off the heat.
About this point, I noticed that the recipe calls for TWO CUPS of mushrooms. Yeah, I probably put in about 1/2 cup, if that... and I have made mushroom gravy before, so that's where I think I went wrong.
My husband thinks this is what Salisbury steak is like. Neither of us really knew, but he was pretty sure it was similar. Anyway, it wasn't too bad! Thanks, Keifer!