The Onion Mushroom Steak Sauce

Yes, proportions are important in cooking, cooking times are important in cooking, esp baking, but there is one sauce that I find to be very, for want of a better word, dynamic. The proportions, the cooking time and everything seems to change every time I make it and I have to keep adjusting. No amount of writing it down seems to help. I put up this query to seasoned cooks and they have asked me to post the recipe so that they can try it out and tell me what is so problematic with the recipe, so here goes!

This time around I used prawns and I plated it differently, but usually, I put in chicken and I plate it with the chicken breast smeared with lots of sauce and with a salad and rice on the sides. As you can see, this time, it was plated on grilled garlic bread!

The Sauce - It is a simple steak sauce and will not take you more than 15 minutes to make it.

Things you will need:

1 teaspoon onion
1 large onion cut in circles
1 cup of tomato puree
1 cup of Worcestershire sauce (hereafter I will type it as W sauce)
3 or 4 buttons of mushrooms chopped.
Salt and Pepper
Meat of Choice

I start off with a heated pan and put in the onions first till they dry out, then add the oil and cook till they are translucent. Then add the tomato puree and cook till the sauce reduces to half. Now add the salt, pepper, mushrooms and W sauce and keep stirring till the sauce again reduces by half! Now add the meat. If it is a chicken breast, it is best pre cooked, if it is prawns, it can be added right away. Cook for another two minutes in low heat till the prawns are cooked.

Done. I told you it was simple!

Now the problem part. I have found that every time the cooking of the tomato puree is slightly long by even a minute, the W sauce tends to overpower the steak sauce. It is a critical point where the sauce tastes great and since I have been doing this for quite sometime, I am able to add some more puree and cook longer if the sauce reduces too much and still has the overpowering W sauce taste and balance it. You will have to find your way of balancing the time, but once you do, you will love this sauce. This is always a hit at home and is very flexible as you can have any meat in it and can be used as a base sauce!