I recently came into possession of Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen cookbook by Lidia Bastianich and found some interesting recipes. One that caught my eye was Pan-Seared Steak with Pizzaiola Sauce.  The recipe seemed very straightforward and pretty easy to do. This week at Whole Foods, they have a special on strip steak ($10.99/lb.), which made creating this dish even more inviting.

The ingredients for the recipe include one red ($2.99/lb)  and one yellow pepper ($3.99/lb.) , white button mushrooms ($2.99/lb), fresh basil, Italian plum tomatoes. Lidia’s recipe suggests San Marzano tomatoes. I found  mine at Wegmans for $3.99 per can and my produce came from Delicious Orchards, Colts Neck

I brought the steak out of the refrigerator and brushed it with olive oil and left it on my kitchen table to take the chill off.  I started the tomato sauce in a cast iron pan as suggested in the recipe. It begins by sautéing the garlic until golden then adding the mushrooms until they too were golden, Once that was done, I added the tomato sauce and had that on a low simmer. In the meantime I started to prepare the peppers and mushrooms for the sauce.

Once I had the sauce completed, it was time to heat up another cast iron pan to cook the steak. The steak was twice the thickness that suggested in the recipe. I cooked the steak 6 minutes per side, turning it twice per side until the internal temperature reached 120 degrees for rare.
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Oh my goodness, was this steak heavenly! It was tender, cooked perfectly and was delicious with the pizzaiola sauce. Since the sauce contained our vegetables for the night, I made some mashed potatoes flavored with Williams-Sonoma Parmesan, Garlic & Herb Mashed Potato seasoning. The potatoes complemented the steak with pizzaiola sauce perfectly. The steak was indulgent for us, but I’ll compensate for this splurge with some pork tonight, Oven-Braised Pork Chops with Apples, Onion and Dried Cherries, another Lidia recipe.