The KC Strip steak is a favorful and tender cut of beef. Dressing it up with fingerling potatoes, bacon lardon, cipollini onions, and wild mushrooms really makes this a center stage dish. Great for special occasions. Your family and friends will be wowed.

Photo by Harry Katz

Pan-Seared KC Strip Loin with Bacon Lardons and Steak Butter

Recipe from Chef Daniel Pliska

The Kansas City strip is a steakhouse favorite, but it’s also a suitable cut to serve a crowd. Don’t break the bank, though. Cut the strips into four or five ounce portions rather than eight to ten ounce portions. With this recipe, four ounces will be plenty. “The accompaniment is just as decadent as the actual strip steak,” Pliska says. “The components of that dish—fingerling potatoes, the crispy bacon lardons, the wild mushrooms, and the cipollini onions—are all, in their own food groups, very luxurious products.” Given its inherent decadence, this dish is great to indulge in over the holidays. Plus, the steak butter is a great recipe to put in your back pocket for any steak night.

Ingredients:

Pan-Seared KC Strip Loin with Bacon Lardons

3 cups diced slab bacon
8 ounces steak butter (recipe below)
8 14-ounce KC Strip Steaks
Kosher salt
Black pepper
Olive oil for sautéing
1 1⁄2 pounds fingerling potatoes
24 peeled Cipolina onions
4 cups chopped trumpet royal or porcini mushrooms
Coarse ground sea salt

Steak Butter
1 pound unsalted butter at room temperature
1 tablespoon fresh tarragon leaves
1 tablespoon fresh chives
2 tablespoons fresh flat leaf parsley leaves
2 tablespoons minced shallots
1⁄2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1⁄4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Directions:

Prepare the bacon lardons by blanching the diced bacon in water over medium heat, removing them from the water, and baking in the oven at 375° until crisp and golden brown. Remove and drain on paper towels.

Prepare the steak butter by coarsely chopping the herbs and mixing them thoroughly with the rest of the steak butter ingredients. Roll up in plastic wrap and chill or freeze slightly to firm up into a cylinder. This recipe will yield more than is needed for 8 portions.

Let the strip steaks come to room temperature, and season with salt and pepper. Sear in very hot pan
with olive oil.

Place onto a roasting rack, and roast for 10 to 12 minutes at 375° or until internal temperature reads
125° for medium rare.

Sauté the onions on medium heat until brown, remove from the pan, and add the potatoes. Sauté until brown. Return the onions to the pan with the potatoes, and cook in the oven at 375° until the potatoes are done. Remove from the oven, and add the mushrooms and bacon lardons. Sauté together to cook the mushrooms.

Remove the steaks from the oven, transfer to a platter, and let rest covered with foil. Slice the strip
steaks and serve on top of the onions, mushrooms, potatoes, and bacon lardons.

Cut thin slices of the chilled steak butter, and place onto the sliced steaks. Return to the oven just long enough to slightly melt the steak butter, and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

Yields 8 servings

Article originally published in the October 2014 issue of Missouri Life.