INGREDIENTS:
4 medium baking potatoes
12 cloves garlic, smashed — roughly chopped
1 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper — to taste
4 Portobello mushrooms — 3/4-1 lb total
stem ends trimmed and caps wiped clean
2 pounds flank steak — trimmed of fat
DIRECTIONS:
Place one oven rack on lowest level and one rack on the next level above. Heat oven to 500 degrees.
Forty minutes before roasting the steak and mushrooms, use a fork to prick the potatoes once or twice each. Place them directly on the sides of the upper rack of the oven, allowing enough room for the mushrooms, which will cook on the same rack.
Put the garlic in the blender or food processor with 4 tablespoons of the oil. Blend until smooth. Scrape down sides with a rubber spatula. Add remaining oil and salt and pepper. Blend until smooth.
Put the mushrooms in a 12-by-8-by-1 1/2-inch roasting pan.
Using the spatula, scrape out half of the garlic mixture into the pan. Rub the puree into both sides of each mushroom cap. Allow to marinate for at least 30 minutes. Put steak in shallow container large enough to hold it. Pour over remaining garlic mixture and rub into both sides of steak. Let marinate on kitchen counter at least 30 minutes or until meat comes to room temperature.
Before roasting the steak and mushrooms, put a 14-by-12-by- 2-inch roasting pan on the lower oven rack and preheat for 10 minutes. Remove pan.
Immediately, put the steak with all of its marinade in the pan. Place on the lower oven rack, the thickest part of the steak to the rear of the oven. Place the mushrooms on the upper rack at the same time.
For rare, roast the steak on one side for 6 minutes (for medium, 8 minutes).
Turn the steak and the mushrooms. Roast 6 minutes more. Remove steak, mushrooms and potatoes from oven. Let steak rest about 5 minutes. Slice thinly against the grain at a 70-degree angle.
Per serving: 734 calories, 53 gm protein, 40 gm carbohydrates, 40 gm fat, 115 mg cholesterol, 11 gm saturated fat, 601 mg sodium
NOTES : (4 servings)
Here the oven is used to turn out the steak and vegetables. The potatoes must be started as soon as the oven is cranked up. The mushrooms go in at the same time as the meat. From "Roasting: A Simple Art" by Barbara Kafka (Morrow, $25).