Helen and I use Home Chef and Hello Fresh for dinners Monday through Thursday. At first, we stuck pretty faithfully to the provided recipes. Increasingly, however, we do tweaks. Last night's "Bavette Steak" is a case in point.
"Sirloin bavette' is a fancy name Hello Fresh and other purveyors use for a cut that comes from the Bottom Sirloin Butt. It's often compared to flank steak, but lacks flank steak's flavor and texture.
Previous experiences with pan searing Hello Fresh's sirloin bavette, as they usually recommend, had resulted in tough and chewy steaks. So I decided to toss out the recipe and try a different approach. I began by whacking the heck out of the steak with my Jaccard 48-blade meat tenderizer
I then marinated the steaks for 4 hours in some balsamic vinegar salad dressing I had in the refrigerator.
After the steaks marinated, I transferred them to a plate and patted them dry with paper towels. Next I seasoned both sides of each with salt and pepper. I then bagged and vacuum sealed them using my Weston vacuum sealer
After the steaks came out of their bags I again dried them thoroughly with paper towels. I then seared them in a 10-inch skillet. I set the steaks aside to rest while I made a pan sauce per the recipe directions. Meanwhile, the recipe had called for roasted potato rounds, but I made mashed potatoes instead.
The steaks turned out great. They were so tender you didn't even need a knife and they had a ton of flavor.
We drank a 2016 Jayson Cabernet Sauvignon (Napa Valley). It was very young, but as I get older I'm liking my wines younger. Deep dark purple-ruby color. Good bouquet of blackberry and black cherry. Ditto the palate. Will improve. Consider double decanting to aerate it in the meanwhile. Grade: A-
