Red Meat From The Formerly Red State

First of all, I'm not an artist so I'm not too good with the colors and stuff. Does that look blue to you?

OK, moving on. Since I am "All-American" as evidenced by the fact that I voted today, I decided to go with a classic "meat and potatoes" theme tonight. You can also call this a "meat and two", which would be equally as "All-American".

I purchased a 1.5 lb sirloin yesterday at Whole Foods Market. I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to prepare this steak since we don't have a grill, but then it hit me. I am going to pan sear this thing and then bake it in the oven. Here are the ingredients that I decided to use to make this super delicious.

- Ground Black Pepper
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 1 Medium Yellow Onion
- 3 Garlic Cloves, pressed
- 1/4 lb Virginia Country Ham, sliced very thin
- Sliced Mushrooms

I let the steak sit out for 30 minutes until it reached room temperate and pressed some ground black pepper into both sides of the steak and brushed both sides with olive oil. I then preheated a baking dish to 450°. If we had a broiler pan, I probably would have gone that route instead of baking. Once the oven was preheated, I seared both sides of the steak over medium-high heat for 2 minutes each. While the steak was searing I removed the preheated baking dish from the oven and lined the bottom of it with enough of the country ham to cover the length of the steak. I then placed some sliced onion on top of the ham before setting the seared steak on top of it. I then covered the top of the steak with the pressed garlic cloves, then covered the top of the steak with more of the country ham. Finally I placed some mushrooms on top of the ham and baked it all in the oven at 450° for 17 minutes without flipping.

The idea behind using Virginia country ham was for its overwhelming saltiness, which I hoped would bake evenly into the steak. I choose ham over bacon because I didn't want the fat from the bacon, just the saltiness. Since the ham was sliced so thin, there wouldn't be much fat coming out of it. I suppose you can also use pancetta, but that doesn't make the steak as "Virginia" as using Virginia country ham. It should be noted though that it is next to impossible to find any country ham actually behind the deli counter. They have some pre-packaged country ham steaks at most grocery stores, but in order to get some sliced thin, I wound up going to Balducci's after first trying two separate Harris Teeter locations where I have found it in the past.

For the potato portion of the meal, I prepared some garlic mashed potatoes. I used 6 golden potatoes and ran them through a food mill to mash them as I generally like my potatoes without chunks, almost whipped I suppose. I added 4 cloves of pressed garlic, some margarine, and milk until the potatoes looked smooth enough for me. Finally I added salt and pepper to taste.

Last but not least, I went with a green bean portion of the meal. For this portion, I pulled apart some slices of the country ham and added it in a pot with a can of drained cut green beans along with some chopped onion, margarine, salt to taste, and a pinch of sugar. This was cooked over low heat for probably close to 30 minutes.

Everything turned out pretty great. The only thing I would change is to add a little bit of salt to the steak before searing it. The ham, garlic, and onion gave the steak a great flavor though so I wouldn't change anything I did there. The mashed potatoes were better than I remember them being anytime recently that I have made them and the green beans were excellent with the ham and onions and broke down quite nicely.