Cowboy Butter Steak Toast | Food Wishes

Hello, this is Chef John from foodwishes.com with cowboy butter steak toast. That's right. If you want to be a cowboy, you're going to have to learn how to ride a horse, how to rope cattle, and of course, how to make a delicious compound butter that's perfect to serve with steak. And since I'm not a cowboy, I only know how to do one of those three things, but it is the most useful one and the most delicious. And to get started, we'll take a stick of room temperature unsalted butter. And we will add in a whole bunch of finely crushed garlic, as well as some freshly grated lemon zest, followed by a little bit of Dijon mustard. And once those things have been transferred in, we'll season this up with some salt, followed by some chili flakes. And I'm using Aleppo since they don't have any seeds. We will also do some smoked paprika, as well as some freshly ground black pepper. And of course, a little bit of cayenne. Oh yeah, cowboys love cayenne. And that brings us up to the scene where we toss in everything that's green, including some fresh thyme, some finely sliced chives, and then last but not least, a little bit of freshly chopped Italian parsley. And that's it. We'll take a spoon and kind of break this up. And then eventually stir and smear it all together. And by the way, even though we added some lemon zest, we are also going to add a little bit of lemon juice to this. But if we added it with everything else, those pieces of butter are just going to slide around the bowl. It'd be much, much harder to mix in. So, I think it's a lot easier if we get everything mixed up first. And then once we get to about this point, we'll go ahead and pour our lemon juice in. And then we'll continue mixing until we're sure everything's been uniformly combined. And once that's been accomplished, we will simply set that aside. And we'll grab a couple nice thick slices of French bread and we'll transfer those onto a line pan. And you cut it how you want, but I think this should be at least an inch thick. And what we'll do is take our freshlymade cowboy butter and we will very generously spread that on both sides. And by the way, this is just my version of cowboy butter. Okay, everybody's recipe seems to be a little bit different. And some include shallots and some include horseradish. So absolutely feel free to alter this if you want. I mean, you guys are after all the Mr. Donnie Hughes of which you should use. And by the way, Mr. Donny Hughes is the diner in New York that gets credit for naming the cowboy butter. But anyway, once those have been generously slathered on both sides, we will transfer those into the center of a 400°ree oven for 10 minutes, at which point we'll pull it out and give those slices a flip. And once that's been accomplished, we'll pop that back in the oven for another 10 minutes or so, or until that bread's as toasted as we like, which for me is definitely fairly well browned and crispy around the edges, but it is your cowboy butter steak toast. So, you decide. And once that is done to our liking, we'll transfer that onto a cooling rack. And we will set that aside until we need it. And then with the cowboy butter we didn't use, what I like to do is transfer it onto a piece of plastic wrap and then kind of shape it and roll it into a thick cylinder. And that way we can refrigerate this and then slice off pieces to place on our steaks. Or you don't have to. You can just spoon it on room temp. But I think a nice medallion looks a little more interesting. So we'll pop that in the fridge and move on to prep our meat. And what I have here is a beautiful 8 oz filet minan, which I think is perfect for this. And what I'm going to do is take a sharp knife and cut right down the center to divide this into two 4 oz portions. Okay, the bad news is beef fillet is very expensive. But the great news is for this recipe, because we're eating it on that cowboy butter drenched toast, we really don't need a large portion of meat. So for a steak dish, at least this is fairly frugal. And then what we'll do is season this very simply with kosher salt on both sides. Okay, since we're using such a flavor bomb of a butter, we really don't need anything more than salt. And that's it. We could pop that in the fridge until we're ready to cook. Or if we're ready to eat, we can head right to the stove where I'm going to pan fry that over high heat and a little bit of avocado oil. And for the sake of filming, I'm just going to do one. And because our steak is so nice and thin, this is only going to take a few minutes per side. Plus, beef fillet is one of those cuts. We want to eat around medium rare, maybe even slightly under, or at least that's my preference. And by the way, besides cooking both sides for a few minutes, sometimes I like to pick it up and kind of brand the sides on the bottom of the pan just to take away that raw look. So, if you feel like doing that, go ahead. And then, regarding doneness, we could use a thermometer and go to about 120 125, but sometimes that's tough with a thin piece of meat. So, I usually just go with the poke test. And when it stops feeling mushy and springs back to the touch, you should be getting close. And once that's cooked to our liking, we'll remove that to a plate. And we'll turn off the heat. And we'll quickly transfer in a small splash of beef broth. Since even though not much caramelized to the bottom because of the short cooking time, there's more than nothing there, so we might as well delaze. And even with the flame off, there's going to be enough residual heat to evaporate most of that broth. And what we want to do is reduce that down to a couple tablespoons. And if there's not enough heat in the pan, just turn the flame back on. And that's it. Once that's set, we can plate up. And we'll transfer our steak on top of our cowboy butter toast. And we'll pour those pan drippings over the top. And yes, a nice tomato and red onion salad would be perfect with this. And then to finish this off, we'll top that with a nice thick slice of our cowboy butter. Then we'll garnish with another pinch of chives. And while some people add that cowboy butter right to the pan and then pour that over the steak, I much prefer this method where it's placed over uncooked and unheated since it's going to soften up very quickly as you can see and we'll be able to spread it out beautifully like this. And once I was happy with the coverage, I went ahead and slice this in half so we can do the big reveal and I can show off how perfectly cooked my steak was. Oh yeah, that looks good. But I really, really want to taste it. So, I cut this portion in half. And then, because I was so hungry, I didn't trust myself with a fork and knife. So, I just picked it up and ate it with my fingers. Which, by the way, is completely appropriate for a steak toast. And that, my friends, is one of the most amazing pairings I've had in a long time since every single ingredient we included in that cowboy butter is perfect with steak. And what I love about this particular approach is that we get that pure uncooked cowboy butter on the top of the steak that's basically mingling with those pan drippings and acting as a sauce, but we also have that same amazing butter cooked into our toast, which has given us a whole another set of flavors. And when you combine the effect of the butter in the bread with the butter on top of our steak, it produces a steak eating experience that's hard to beat. Although, I will give you one shortcut idea. You can, if you want, just do your bread in a toaster and toast it nice and brown and crispy and then just place your steak on top and do everything else as shown. But that's going to get you something very similar to this, only a lot faster. So, if you're in a hurry, something to keep in mind. But whether you do the quick version or not, this cowboy butter is one of the most versatile and delicious things you'll ever make. And I really do hope you give it a try soon. So, please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts. a printable written recipe and much more info as usual. And as always, enjoy