Summer Fresh Berry Steak Sauce

They say a good steak doesn't need any steak sauce. For the most part, that's true. There aren't a lot of options out there for a great steak sauce. The sauces are usually based on a brown-sauce style and include malt vinegar as one of the main ingredients. I usually only use salt and pepper lately and follow the Serious Eats philosophy for salting steaks at least 50 minutes before grilling. In addition, I love their Importance of Resting Meat  article as well.

Last week, I was out for dinner and I normally don't use steak sauce but the steak didn't have much flavour. So I had some HP sauce which is a British brown sauce-style steak sauce and it really didn't add much to the steak. So I'm sharing one of my favourite recipes. It's been modified from this recipe.  It's so simple yet so good.

Summer Fresh Berry Steak Sauce

Ingredients

• 1 pint raspberries, washed and dried
• 1 pint blackberries, washed and dried
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup GF Worcestershire sauce ( US- Lea and Perrins or Canada-Heinz London Style)*
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1/2 cup cider vinegar
• 20 drops hot pepper sauce ( or more to taste. the longer it sits, the hotter it gets, I use Frank's Red Hot)
• salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions

1.  In a saucepan over medium heat, combine raspberries and blackberries and cook down for approx 10-15 minutes until berries have liquified and lost their shape. 
2. Strain berries through a fine mesh wire strainer until you have all of the berry juices that you possibly can. You will have a lump of thick berry residue in your strainer after this.                   
3. In a saucepan over high heat, blend berries,  brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, cider vinegar, hot pepper sauce, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat to low, and simmer 10 minutes, or until thickened.               

I pour this into a few old sauce jars and it makes about 3-4 cups.
*Ensure you are using a Gluten Free Worcestershire Sauce. Look under SAUCES for Lea and Perrins and Heinz which will be the London Recipe version.  Both are gluten free depending on where you are.

Slowly cooking berries down

Pour into strainer/sieve and press berries through. Scrape underside of mesh occasionally.

The remains

Nearly a cup of puree

Made over 1 3/4 bottles of sauce

Usually I buy a nice large tenderloin and cut it into smaller pieces to freeze or buy thick 16 oz steaks at the butcher and this sauce just compliments the beef so well. Sometimes, the heat of the sauce increases over time as you store it. It's perfect since berries are in season and it's the best time of year for grilling a nice juicy steak.