Peppercorn Blue Cheese Wine Sauce on Rib Eye Steak

Patti and I have set one night a week just for us. It’s our date night. We usually put something special on our Louisiana Wood Pellet Grill/Smoker but sometimes we cook inside. We always eat outside on our patio where it is very comfortable with a rainforest theme.  Wood burning stove, little lights, candles, lanterns and surround sound. We enjoy a little wine, or strawberry margaritas using frozen strawberries for ice, good food, music and sometimes a dance or two…

If you are looking for something really special for your Valentine’s Day dinner this is an excellent one. It’s easy to do and everyone will praise you as a “Grill Master”. Just grill your steaks until favored temperature, top with blue cheese crumbles and drizzle the wine sauce. When the cheese melts you have an elegant and delicious masterpiece.

This is a rich sauce for any type of steak and if you double the recipe it will make a fine marinade. We must try this on fowl using white wine.  

Sauce:

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Stovetop

Rib Eye Steaks

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes smoke, 7 minutes per side

Grill: Louisiana Wood Pellet Grill

Ingredients: Peppercorn Wine Sauce

1 cup Cabernet Sauvignon (if it’s good enough to drink, it’s good enough to cook with)

¼ cup shallots or green onions, chopped

1 ½ teaspoons fresh garlic, minced

1 ½ Tablespoons Country Bob’s All Purpose Sauce

2 Tablespoons butter, divided

3 Tablespoons peppercorns, crushed

Ingredients: Steak

Rib Eye Steaks

Pete’s Firehouse Santa Maria Style Rub

1 ½ cups blue cheese, crumbled

Directions: Peppercorn Wine Sauce

In a medium saucepot sauté shallots and garlic with one tablespoon butter for two minutes. Add peppercorns, wine and Country Bob’s All Purpose Sauce. Boil until reduced by half, about five minutes. Whisk in remaining butter.

Cooking Directions: Louisiana Wood Pellet Grill

To prepare the grill for cooking, check your pellet supply – top off or change flavors as needed. Scrape grill grates off. Turn the “Feed Control” High and press the “Start” button. Give the grill about 15 minutes to reach temperature and the grates to burn clean.

I like to smoke everything for at least 30 minutes with an hour being even better. After all the Louisiana pellet grill is an awesome smoker. So use it for all the wood smoke flavor it will add to your food.

So after the grill comes up to temp and burns clean turn it back down to low. This will be around 180 to 200 degrees (84 to 95c). Place everything directly onto the grill and just let it hang out in the smoke and get happy for 30 minutes or so. This is referred to as “Smoking” or “Hot Smoking”, the temperature is 180 degrees (84c). 30 minutes of smoking is not enough to have any cooking effect on your meat but it is enough to open the pores so that the meat can pick up all the flavor of the smoke.

After 30 minutes, turn the (Feed Control) up to 500 degrees (265c) and pull the meat off the grill and open the Flame-Broiler. When the grill comes up to temperature put your meat back onto the grill.

Louisiana Wood Pellet Grill’s Flame-Broiler

These were 2 inch steaks so they needed a little time on the grill. I put them over the Flame-Broiler for a hot sear for about 3 ½ minutes per side. Then moved them over off the direct heat for about 4 more minutes until I reached an internal temp around 130 – 140 (55c).

Move them over off the direct heat

Now, top with your blue cheese and drizzle your wine sauce over it until the cheese melts. When the meat reaches an internal temp around 130 – 140 (55c) pull it off, cover it and let it rest for 10 minutes before serving. This will be medium rare. Keep in mind that the meat will continue cooking for another 10 degrees after you pull it off the grill. So for medium pull it at 140 (60c) and overdone 160 (72c).

Top with your blue cheese and drizzle your wine sauce over it.

Note: I get a lot of questions about the kind of pellets you can use with a recipe. Keep in mind that a recipe is just an outline. Some you need follow closely like when you are making bread, but most you can do anything you can dream, our favorite way to cook. Feel free to mix and match the pellets until you find a combination you really like. Also you are only smoking at temps less than 250 degrees, anything higher is cooking and there will not be much if any smoke so it does not matter what kind of pellet you are using.

About our Recipes

We do our recipes on our patio where we have a lineup of grills, including Louisiana, Royall, Memphis, Traeger pellet grills, Char Griller side box smoker, Charmglow, Char-Broil, The Big Easy, Brinkman and Weber. I call it our “Wall of Grill”. Our grilling styles are healthy and low fat and will fit pelletheads, gas, natural wood and even charcoal purists. Almost any of our recipes can be done on any kind of good BBQ.

The important thing to keep in mind is TIME & TEMPERATURE. You can even do some of them in the oven or crock pot, but, then you lose all the flavors you get from cooking outdoors. But sometimes it does rain.

Remember that a recipe is simply an outline; it is not written in stone. Don’t be afraid to make changes to suit your taste.

Take it and run with it….

Live your Passion,

Ken & Patti

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http://www.louisiana-grills.com/

Our Thanks To:

Pete’s Firehouse BBQ
Santa Maria Style Rub
951 848 9764
www.petesfirehousehousebbq.com

Maverick Industries, Inc.
94 Mayfield Avenue
Edison, New Jersey 08837
1-800-526-0954
Tel: (732) 417-9666
help@maverickhousewares.com
www.maverickhousewares.com/