This is completely absurd and I don’t even know where to begin. Steak Oscar was originally Veal Oscar and was named for Sweden’s King Oscar II (of course it was!) who liked these foods so someone thought to combine them altogether. 

One year Better Half had a Milestone Birthday so I called one his least objectionable friends and asked him if he knew that BH’s birthday was coming up. No one had any idea. “Perfect. I want you to do me a favor. On Saturday [the date] I want you to take him out for like a Happy Hour thing and I don’t care where you take him, just don’t let him get too drunk and have him home by 8 PM. Scream ‘Surprise!’ at some point if you must. I won’t be there; I’m going to be making dinner.” “Great. What are we having?” “I have no idea what you’re having but BH and I will be dining à deux. Thanks. You guys are the best!” Click.

So I made Steak Oscar, which is not difficult at all, it’s just very expensive, very rich, and very indulgent. It’s nothing more than a steak topped with asparagus and then that’s topped with lump crab meat, and you pour Béarnaise sauce over the whole thing. I feel my arteries clogging just writing about this. Oh, and since the only place you might encounter Steak Oscar is in a very old-school steakhouse I made a baked potato for each of us. 

I’m going to vary my usual FYCE posts in this description so if you have a death wish and want to attempt this, or are in line to be a Merry Widow(er), just read through completely once or twice.

1. Heat your oven to 425 degrees.

2. Scrub 2 large russet potatoes so they’re grit-free, don’t peel them, coat them in olive oil, and rub in salt and pepper. I didn’t poke holes in mine but some people do. Put this on your smallest baking sheet or something small you might have that would work and put them in the oven. They’re going to stay in there for up to an hour. Do this around 7 PM.

3. Take the Ravenous Hound out for an early final walk because you will be immobilized after your Steak Oscar dinner.

4. Upon your return, make the Béarnaise sauce. I cover that here: https://deadsplinter.com/food-you-can-eat-chateaubriand/

but this will throw your timing off. I actually premade the Béarnaise sauce once I got BH out the door and then (gasp! Don’t tell anyone) microwaved it briefly to bring it back to life but this is not preferred. Post-microwave you have to whisk it but not so much that it foams. You don’t need a lot of sauce, 1/2 cup should do it, unless you really like it (I do) so I made 1 cup.

5. In a small bowl mix 1 stick of softened butter with some parsley, the juice of a small lemon, and some salt. I did this by hand, thank you very much. Put the bowl somewhere; you’ll need it later.

6. Right now it should be about 7:30 PM, 1/2 hour before the Birthday Boy is due home. Heat a skillet over medium-high to get it good and hot. Take out two ribeyes. Mine were I think about 10 oz. each and probably 3/4” thick, maybe closer to 1”. This is often prepared using filet mignon but I think that’s kind of a waste of good filet mignon. The steak should be good quality, though. Rub them with a little olive oil and salt and pepper them and sear them, 3 or 4 minutes to a side, so they brown. Into the oven they go, for 10 minutes, or at least that worked for me. They came out medium-rare. You probably know how to make your own steaks…

7. While the steaks are in the oven alongside their baking potatoes friends steam some asparagus. You don’t need a lot, maybe 4 spears per person. This goes quickly, about 5 minutes. If you want, you can put the asparagus on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper them, and put those in the oven too, for maybe 8 minutes. I often do this but my oven was already crowded with the two potatoes and the two steaks. 

8. Take out the steaks and the potatoes and the asparagus if you did it that way. The steaks need to rest for a few minutes so:

9. But Cousin Matt, you promised us crab. That I did. As a final step, put the butter/lemon/parsley mixture in a small skillet or saucepan (a sauté pan is good for this) over medium heat and gently, oh so gently, add about 6 oz. of lump crab. This I bought from the local fishmonger before they became pandemic profiteers so I didn’t have to pay $40 for it or something. There’s a good Yiddish word: they’re gonifs, which means thieves, but it doesn’t mean like someone who would mug you or break into your house, it means they take advantage of you and charge too much. It’s the unofficial motto of New York City: E Gonifs Unum. Where was I? Oh yes, gently push the lump crab around in the butter mixture for a couple/few minutes so it absorbs the mixture and warms through. Be careful not to break up the crab too much.

Gosh I miss my functioning arteries.

Now the Birthday Boy is home and it’s time to plate. He doesn’t seem too drunk so open a bottle of a decent red and let that breathe. Slice an end off of each steak and add to The Ravenous Hound’s kibble bowl. Put one steak on each plate, top with some asparagus spears, top those with a lump of the crab, and spoon on the Béarnaise. Squeeze on a potato somewhere on the plate, slit open and fill with some sour cream or a horseradish sauce, and get right with your god before tucking in. 

Leave the dishes and pans for tomorrow because this milestone birthday of your Better Half’s only comes around once in a lifetime.

On a personal note, if you’re still reading, by the time this pops up on FYCE we will have celebrated 35 years as a couple. That seems preposterous, even to me, and I lived through it. As a fan of demographic trivia I happen to know that the median age of all Americans is a little over 38 years. Since we were (young) adults when we coupled off we could very well be parents to a member or members of almost 50% of the country. Put another way, almost 50% of the country wasn’t alive when I set my trap. This is how I spent our 35th anniversary, contemplating this little factoid.