Monday: steak and gratin

Friday night I started marinating some steak using the recipe from last week's Minimalist column. Since another cut (saftplätzli) was on sale I used a cut other than ribeye, but otherwise I pretty much stuck to the recipe. Last night I pulled the steaks out of the marinade, dried them with paper towels, and then seared them in a lightly oiled skillet. As they came out of the skillet I seasoned them with salt and pepper, let them rest a minute, then served them. 

This is a really nice preparation. I'm not convinced that using Amarone is necessary (I don't think the difference from a reasonable Cote du Rhone would be noticeable), but that's a detail.

To go with the steaks I did a gratin using another mysterious root vegetable from the biokiste. We had one of these last year too and I didn't do any research to figure out what it was. This year, after some poking around, I'm reasonably convinced that it's a Steckrübe (a kohlrabi relative). Whatever it is, it makes a good gratin but one needs to be careful with the liquid content : the Steckrübe releases water while cooking instead of absorbing it.