Reading Kieran in Ice Cream Ireland today about the search for Granny’s recipes from Mercier Press inspired me to seek out this recipe from my mother.
While my mother was alive this was her ultimate comfort and celebration dish, and as she got it in turn from her mother it certainly qualifies for the “Granny” label.

The sauce, according to my Grandmother, had originally been called Monkey Gland Sauce. It was she claimed, so called because in the 1920’s when it was invented, there was a belief that consumption of monkey glands would grant the consumers longevity.
This particular combination of tomato cream and mushrooms was thought so delicious that it could perform a similar function.
This was their story and both my mother and grandmother stuck to it.
The South Africans, meanwhile have their own version of Monkey Gland Sauce which is a fairly revolting combination of every sauce in the store cupboard thrown onto a pan, a bit like Sweet and Sour meets Barbecue Sauce.
This is not to be confused with our true Granny’s Sauce.

I put this recipe on the menu in my restaurant in Waterford shortly after we opened and it was certainly the most popular sauce for steak there for the fifteen years we were in business.
It was always on the menu as Steak with Granny Dwyer’s Sauce .
I know that the Mercier are hoping for stuff more in the line of Apple Pie and Bacon and Cabbage but this was a true Granny dish, was enjoyed by her seven children, her thirty grandchildren and (I hope will be ) by her (for now) thirty odd great-grand-children.

Steak with Granny Dwyer’s Sauce

4x 225g (8oz.) Steaks (Fillet or Sirloin)
Salt and Pepper
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
175g (6 oz.) Mushrooms
60g (2 oz.). Butter
Squeeze of Lemon Juice
30g (1 oz.) Flour
225g (8 oz.) Vine Tomatoes
225ml (8 oz.) Cream (or Crème Fraiche)
Salt and Pepper

Sauce:
First get ready the tomatoes. Bring a pot of water to the boil and then slip in the tomatoes, put the put into a sink as soon as it comes back to boil and pour in cold water. When they are cool enough to handle slip off the skins and then chop the tomatoes with a large knife into small cubes. Put to one side.
Rub the mushrooms in a clean tea towel to remove any compost (there is no need to wash cultivated mushrooms)
Slice these, Melt the butter in a large pan and cook the mushrooms in this until all their liquid has evaporated and they are starting to go brown.Sprinkle over the lemon juice and then the flour and stir this in.Now put in the chopped tomatoes and bring to the boil stirring all the time.
Next add the cream and again boil and continue simmering for a few minutes.

Now put a pan with a heavy base on to heat and when hot put the oil on . When this is sizzling add the meat to the pan and brown it on one side, then turn it and brown the other.
When cooked for about a minute on each side the steak is rare and ready to serve, you should decrease the heat and continue cooking it, turning from time to to time to cook it as much as you want. (Bear in mind that the more you cook it the more natural moisture it looses and the smaller the steak gets) Once cooked put these on a large plate somewhere warm and reheat the sauce, once hot pour in any juices that will have gathered on the steak plate.
Serve with the sauce poured over the steaks.