Beef & French Onion Sauce

The key to this dish is to get the onions nicely browned and caramelized, as this will give the sauce a great taste. You can cook the steaks as rare, or as well done, as you'd like.

Serve with toasted slices of French baguette 

Ingredients:

4 beef tenderloin steaks, 4 ounces each
2 large onions, thinly sliced
1 bay leaf
2 cups sliced cremini mushrooms 
1 cup beef stock
1/3 cup white wine
1 heaping teaspoon dried thyme
2 tablespoons butter (divided use)
2 tablespoons oil (olive, vegetable or canola)
1 to 2 tablespoons flour
1 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper (divided use)
1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt, to taste (if the beef stock is salty, you can certainly cut down of the amount of salt)
1/3 cup shredded Swiss cheese

Heat a large heavy bottomed skillet or pan over medium heat. Add 2 tablespoons oil, then add the sliced onions. Toss the onions in the oil and let them cook until they soften and begin to brown. Sprinkle the sugar over the onions, stir and continue to cook the onions until they are browned and sweetened by caramelization. Add one tablespoon of butter and the mushrooms. Add the thyme and sprinkle the flour over the onion and mushroom mixture, then stir to mix. Add the bay leaf and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper. Gradually stir in the beef stock and then the white wine. Turn the heat to low and let the mixture simmer and thicken a little. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, melt 1 tablespoon butter over medium heat (you can always add more butter or even oil, if needed). Season the steaks on both sides with salt and pepper. Add steaks to the skillet and cook about 3 to 6 minutes per side, depending on how well done you want each steak, then add each steak to the simmering sauce, and turn off the heat (remove the bay leaf). Toast some slices of good bread (baguettes are good for this) and place a steak and some sauce on serving plates, followed with a piece of toast on top of each steak, and sprinkle a little shredded cheese over the toast, followed by a little of the sauce on the cheese.  

WORD HISTORY:
Loin-This word is related to "lumbar" and to "lumbago," both of which are Latin-derived words borrowed by English. "Loin" goes back to Indo European "lendh," which meant, "area of the waist, loin, kidney." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "lendi," with the same meanings. This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "lenden," meaning, "loin" ("lendenu"=plural, "loins"), and this then became "lende." Latin had "lumbus" (loin, hip), but it is unclear if this came from a form of Latin's immediate ancestor "Italic," with that form presumed to have been "londwos," or whether Latin may have rendered their own form from another language group, with Germanic being a prime possibility. Old French, a Latin-based language, had the word passed on as "loigne/lombes," ("loin, hip, lower back, lower torso/loins"). English borrowed the word, initially as "loyne/loine," and it overtook the native word, "lende," as the main word, although "lende" became "lend" (nothing to do with the more common word of that spelling), and it remains as a dialect word in parts of England and Scotland. Its Germanic relatives are German "Lende/Lenden" (loin/loins), Low German "Lenn/Lennen" (body area around the hip/hips), Dutch "lende/lenden" (loin, lower back/loins), Swedish "länd/länder" (lower back/loins), Icelandic "lendir" (loins), Danish "lænd(e)/lænder" (loin/loins), Norwegian "lend" (loins).