TASTE
Sauce up beef with blueberries, wine
| • | A world of olive oil |
By Elaine Magee
This summer I found myself in a less-known province of Canada, Saskatchewan, sampling all sorts of regional dishes. It was such a nice tour of the area that one fine meal seemed to run right into the next. One meal stood out to me, though — a sunny outdoor lunch featuring grilled elk with a Saskatoon berry sauce. As I was enjoying the sauce (the elk also tasted great, but I just couldn't get the image of Bambie's uncle out of my head), I thought it would go great with a nicely broiled or grilled filet mignon.
The chef was kind enough to share his signature recipe and confessed right away that a lot of butter and time went into the sauce. I knew I could deal with the butter issue, but wasn't so sure about the time. Turns out it wasn't too bad to make (a little over 30 minutes) and using less butter worked out just fine (I used 2 tablespoons of whipped butter instead of 8 tablespoons of stick butter).
The trick was decreasing the red-wine vinegar (the flavor is stronger when there is less butter to help balance it) and adding a bit more chicken broth (and I used condensed or double strength to punch up the flavor). Saskatoon berries (native to the province) were originally used in the recipe but I opted for something I knew could be in all of our freezers year round — blueberries. Pick the petite ones if you can, to mimic the size of the Saskatoon berries.
BERRY SAUCE FOR BEEF
Add onion to a medium nonstick saucepan and cook over medium-high heat for about 2 minutes, stirring often. Then add blueberries and brown sugar and continue to cook, letting it caramelize, for about 3 minutes more (stirring often).
Reduce heat to medium and add the wine, vinegar, and chicken broth. Continue to cook until it reduces to about half the original amount (around 1 1/2 cups). This takes around 25 to 30 minutes.
Remove the saucepan from the heat and whisk in the whipped butter. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve on top or on the side of broiled or grilled filet mignon (would probably work well with elk, venison or pork if you prefer).
Makes 8 servings of sauce.
Per serving of sauce: 93 calories, 2.2 g protein, 11.5 g carbohydrate, 2.4 g fat (1.3 g saturated fat, .8 g monounsaturated fat, .2 g polyunsaturated fat), 6 mg cholesterol, 1 g fiber, 272 mg sodium (not including salt to taste). Calories from fat: 23 percent. Omega-3 fatty acids, 0.05 g. Weight Watchers points 2. Omega-6, 0.15 g. (Original recipe contained 176 calories, 12 grams fat, and 7.2 g saturated fat and 31 mg cholesterol per serving of sauce.)
Elaine Magee is author of "The Recipe Doctor Cookbook" and "The Flax Cookbook." Reach her at www.recipedoctor.com. Personal responses can't be provided. This column is distributed by Knight Ridder News Service.
