Red Wine And Truffle Chopped Steak Recipe

Anyone who grew up eating hot lunch in their school cafeteria instead of brown-bagging is no doubt familiar with the dish known as Salisbury steak. If you've ever gotten a nostalgic craving for the stuff but wondered if there was a way to make it more upscale, this recipe's for you. Developer Patterson Watkins explains that her intent was "to elevate this classic dish out of 'Lunch Lady Land' and into the realm of finer dining." To this end, she makes the sauce more bougie with red wine, truffle oil, and a blend of mushrooms, but the base of the dish is still the same classic burger patty.

While this recipe manages to hit the sweet spot between fancy and familiar, it has one more thing in its favor that you might not notice on the first read-through. It's actually pretty low in carbohydrates and has a more sophisticated texture than classic Salisbury steak due to the lack of flour or cornstarch as sauce thickeners. "Instead," says Watkins, the sauce "relies on reduction to concentrate flavors and thicken."

Fancy as it is, this dish starts with plain old ground beef. You'll also need some standard fridge and pantry staples like salt, pepper, butter, garlic, and beef bouillon (Watkins favors the paste kind) as well as fancier ingredients like truffle oil, shallots, and red wine.

You're also going to need some mushrooms for the sauce, as these are an essential part of any Salisbury steak recipe. Watkins likes to mix and match her mushrooms and here uses cremini, oyster, and shiitake ones. These will "impart their own earthy, meaty elements to the overall dish," she says.

Divide the meat into four patties and season them with salt and pepper. Melt half the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat, then sear the burgers for about 3 minutes on each side. Once they are browned all over, take them out of the pan.

Melt the rest of the butter in the pan, then stir in the shallots and truffle oil, followed by the mushrooms, cooking for 8-10 minutes. As Watkins advises, "Really sweat out the mushrooms and shallots" until most of their juices have cooked off. Once they have done so and the vegetables are relatively soft, stir in the garlic and wine. Use this additional liquid to de-glaze the pan. Once the sauce is simmering, cook it for 8-10 minutes. When most of the wine has evaporated, dissolve the bouillon in the water and add that to the pan.

Stir up the sauce, bring it to a simmer once more, and put the beef patties back in the pan. Leave them be for about 15 minutes (no need to put a lid on) until the meat is cooked and the sauce has thickened. To make these upscale Salisbury steaks even fancier, dress them up with a few sprigs of fresh thyme before you eat them.

Leftover patties and sauce can be refrigerated, although Watkins advises cooling them to room temperature and then sticking them in an airtight container first. As she explains, "this will help keep condensation away" so the leftovers are just as good as the fresh stuff.