Flank steak with port-mushroom sauce

Another pre-holiday meal--the task was to make something suitably festive that also managed to use up a half a bottle of port wine that had been sitting around. With that in mind, here's what happened:

Sliced 3 shallots thinly and sauteed them until soft over low-medium heat in about 2 tablespoons of butter. Added another tablespoon of butter, turned up the heat and added 1 package mushrooms, sliced thickly. Sauteed mushrooms until they were golden, probably about 8 minutes. To this buttery mixture, I added 1 tablespoon of flour and stirred well. Added salt, pepper and at least a cup of port. It was probably more than that, actually, because I just poured in what was left in the bottle. Also put in 3 cups of chicken stock at this point. Reduced it down until it was thick enough to coat a spoon, took off heat and set aside.

I ended buying 3 pounds of flank steak in 2 large cuts, so I cooked them in shifts. Salted and peppered both sides of the meat and let them rest at room temperature for half an hour before cooking. Melted olive oil and butter together in a cast iron pan over high heat and added the steak. Each side seared for about 5 minutes, then flipped when well browned and incredibly delicious looking. They were actually sort of rare so you can pull them off for people who like rare meat, cut of a couple slices and then return the rest to the pan for more well done pieces.

I sliced the flank steak against the grain into thin slices, laid them out on a tray, drizzled a little of the sauce over the top and passed the rest of the sauce at the table for people to pour over.

We had this great crab-red pepper mousse from the DeKalb market for an appetizer. Betsy made a great salad for dinner and Jeremy made a baked apple crisp with actual, real-live, homemade vanilla ice cream for dessert. We all pretty much stuffed our faces, drank a lot of wine and had an awesome time.