cognac coffee marinated steaks

around new year's certain someone and i had dinner at my uncles's, his wife is an amazing cook. we had steaks with sauteed mushrooms and crepe suzettes for dessert. the steaks were cognac-coffee marinaded, the suzettes were flambeed...

this weekend i drove to my brother's for a visit, and ended up cooking for the whole crew. as i was going thru lunch options i remembered the steaks we'd had at my uncles. i decided to serve them with roasted fingerling potatoes and brussels sprouts. the little niece got her steak "au naturel", others marinated. the recipe in the link in in finnish, couldn't find one close enough in english. marinating steaks for four you'll need:

2 dl bbq sauce (any ready made, or your own)
½ dl cognac / brandy
½ dl strong coffee







as luck would have it, once in a blue moon, when i cook in a kitchen where there's natural light for great pictures, i forget my "good" camera home, and the battery in the small one was running down...so, instead of giving you the whole PW tutorial, you'll get one lousy picture of everything on the plate.

the fingerlings went to oven with rapeseed oil, dried thyme and rosmary. the sprouts (which, by now, i'm starting to really like...) got my usual treatment, medium hot pan, no fat until slightly caramelized, slivered almonds for garnish.

for the sauce for the steak i used 200 gr cream cheese with black pepper (lots of it), 2dl water and ½ dl cognac. first cook the cheese & water un medium heat until smooth, then add cognac (and pepper if your cheese doesn't come flavoured) and some of the marinade to taste. i did add some sugar to round up the taste. i'm no sauce/gravy master, but this turned out so good, ask my brother, he dunked his bread in it...

i'm not going to tell you how to cook your steaks, some much depends on some many different things. this was first time cooking steaks at my brother's so i was more or less playing hazards...i was aiming for medium, we got medium plus, which i consider not so bad.

well, great lunch calls for dessert, right? my nephew asked for "english" apple pie. after asking him to define "english" here, he said "a pie with a lid". i went to martha for a recipe for pate brisee for the filling we peeled and chopped 5 granny smiths, added some sugar, cinnamon, all purpose flour and butter, filled the pie and put the "lid" on. i did make fancy holes on the top...







with apple pie you gotta have something vanilla...i was going to make vanilla custard from scratch but got lazy and ended up with store bought custard







the pie was gone in no time...i think my best apple pie ever, seriously. i'm blaming the amount of butter in it...







my sister in law suffers from the same disorder i do...or maybe it's because we're both virgoes...here is her "holiday destination brochure project" (she's going to be so mad at me for posting this picture...)





ps. another take on the steaks here.