New Year's Eve Dinner:

Ok, so there is a bit of a story behind this one. Over the summer I spent a good deal of time driving around the U.S. Mina and I went to Maine for our Anniversary, to Athens, OH for my brother's master's program graduation, and to Indianapolis for the formula one U.S. Grand Prix. While on these trips, I listened to some books on CD that I had borrowed from our local public library. One of these was the unabridged version of "Undaunted Courage", by Stephen Ambrose, which is the story of the Lewis and Clark expedition of the American west. In any event, the descriptions of the delights of buffalo meat that Ambrose, Lewis, and Clark give got me to wondering about what it tastes like. I had seen buffalo steaks at the Wegman's supermarket, and thought New Year's was a special enough occasion to splurge (actually, two 6-ounce steaks were $9.99, which is about $13.33/pound - not outrageous, really).

So, the menu: Buffalo Sirloin Steaks, Caramelized Onion Confit, Roasted Garlic and Rosemary Mashed Sweet Potato, Red Wine Braised Mushrooms, a salad, and homemade rolls (courtesy of the Lovely Mina). The steaks I did on our grill pan, 3 minutes on one side and 1:30 on the other, and they came out just perfectly medium-rare. I slathered them with olive oil along with sea salt and black pepper before grilling. Buffalo steaks are incredibly lean, with no noticable fat either marbled or on the outside of the meat, but ours came out juicy and tender. The verdict: In short, I am sold on buffalo. The meat had a very nice mouth feel, and the only way I can describe it is to say that is was somewhat sweet.

The onion confit I had prepared before, and was quite easy. The onions were browned and then simmered, covered, in 1/3 cup of stock, a few tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, and a star anise. After 20-30 minutes, the pan lid was removed and the sauce thickened. The mushrooms I sauteed in olive oil for about 1-2 minutes with garlic, and then simmered in red wine until the wine had reduced by 2/3, finally adding a small pat of butter to bring a little shine to the sauce. The sweet potato was simply boiled in satled water and then mashed with a little butter, some rosemary leaves, sea salt, pepper, and a head of roasted garlic. For the salad, we used some mixed greens, cherry tomatos, kalamata olives, feta cheese, a little sliced bosc pear, and a few slivers of toasted almond.

We toasted with Domaine Ste. Michelle Blancs de Blanc, my favorite bubbly, and had some Ravenswood 2005 Lodi Zinfandel to match the buffalo steaks. All around, a very nice dinner to see out 2007.