Pan Fried Steak With Vegetables

This has become a mainstay at my house. It evolved out of a recipe I saw on the Food Channel a while back. I've done this recipe with fish filets, chicken breast, lamb and a number of other things, and for some reason it's always worked. You just have to use an appropriate wine for your meat of choice, i.e. a nice fat Cabernet will work well for steak, but will gag and bury any white fish.

• Ready In: 20 mins
• Serves: 2

Ingredients

• 2  steaks, i suggest a medallion cut sirloin
• 1⁄2 bunch asparagus, cleaned and woody stems removed
• 1  tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped
• 2  cups  cleaned and  sliced mushrooms (portabello are nice but button or brown are good too)
• 1  cup red wine
• 2  shallots, chopped
• 1  garlic clove, minced
• 1 1⁄2-2  cups  halved cherry tomatoes or 1 1⁄2-2  cups grape tomatoes
• 3  tablespoons butter
• 1  tablespoon olive oil
•  kosher  salt and pepper

Directions

1. Pat 1-2 pinches of salt into each side of the steaks.
2. Heat a large sauté pan or iron skillet to medium high.
3. You'll want to avoid non-stick for this purpose and don't put any oil in the pan either, as we're going to want all those little bits that stick to the bottom of the pan for later.
4. Place steaks in pan and let sear.
5. DON'T YOU DARE POKE AT 'EM!
6. Cook on each side to desired doneness-- when they're just underdone, remove from skillet, place on plate, and stick that plate in a 200°F oven to keep warm, and to rest.
7. Heat olive oil in the same pan as you cooked your steaks inches.
8. Add your mushrooms, shallots, garlic and a pinch of salt and few grinds of pepper and sweat at medium until tender, stirring occasionally.
9. Raise heat to medium-high and add rosemary and asparagus and gently add red wine.
10. Cover and let sit for 5 minutes.
11. Uncover, and add tomato halves.
12. Keep stirring occasionally until liquids have reduced to a syrupy texture.
13. Squish 6-10 tomato halves with a fork (another reason to avoid non-stick pans for this) and add the butter in chunks randomly throughout the pan.
14. Reduce heat to minimum and let the butter melt.
15. Get the steaks out of the oven (carefully! that plate is gonna be hot!) and place one on each plate to be served.
16. Using tongs or a slotted spoon, divide veggies between the two plates.
17. Spoon some of that sauce over each plate, making sure to keep the portions equal (many arguments over 'who got more sauce' whenever we have this--trust me the extra care is warranted).
18. Garnish with some parsley or rosemary sprigs and serve.