One Meal Two Sauces

In the past few months I have made so many meals using fresh figs. I am really starting to love figs. I also love making sauces. Sauces make boring meals more exciting. Plus they are so gourmet, and that's what it's all about. While at Russo's Sunday, I decided to buy fresh figs and ravioli. I knew I was going to make two sauces this week, but I didn't think it would be the same meal. The ravioli was ricotta and sweat pea. I knew I wanted to use them as a side and not as the main focus. I decided to buy thin steaks while at Shaws and figured they would pair well with ravioli. But how could I make the steak as good as the ravioli? The answer was easy FIGS.

I love buying these steaks, they are so easy to make and are a cheap, decent cut of meat. I use a little olive oil and sea salt to make a quick and easy marinade and pan fry them. I found an easy balsamic fig sauce on keyingredient.com. I knew this would pump up the cheap thin steaks, and boy did it ever!!! I did change the recipe up a little. It asked for fig preserves, but I used fresh figs. I chopped up two figs before adding it to the balsamic vinegar and port. I roasted some brussel sprouts with olive oil, sea salt and garlic at 500F for 20 minutes. I tossed a cask iron skillet in with the brussel sprouts. After 20 minutes the skillet is hot enough to evenly cook the steaks. Just two minutes a side and the steaks were perfect. I cut them up into strips and served the fig sauce.  While the brussel sprouts were roasting I also cooked the ravioli and a butter and sage sauce. The butter sauce was so good, it used fresh sage, lemon juice and Parmigiano cheese. My buddy Chef Timmy gave me the idea for the butter sauce and he was so right. The two sauces kind of mixed together on the plate so I used the brussel sprouts to sop up the mess. I was in pure flavor Heaven!!

The wine was an easy pick. I had a worked with the new rep to Cielo in Italy. They have good inexpensive estate wines. In 2008 they celebrated their 100 year anniversary by introducing a new wine, Cent'anni Valpolicella Ripasso. This wine is so good!! It retails around $15.99 which for a Ripasso is a good value. The wine is big, and robust with great cherry flavors. Valpolicella Ripasso wines are great. The grapes are harvested later in the year so that they over ripe on the vine and basically become raisins. The grapes are fermented, but later in the spring they are re-passed over the left over skin of it's bigger brother, Amarone. This helps add body, color and flavor and kicks it into a second fermentation that raises the alcohol. The wine went great with the steak and the figs!! Perfect pairing for a great meal.