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The regional table / Iowa

Steak de Burgo

Published September 23, 2026 · Iowa

Two browned beef tenderloin medallions on French bread with garlic and basil butter sauce.
The bread is under the steak for a reason — it is the only thing in the dish that catches the butter. AI-generated illustration.
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Every argument about this steak is about what goes in the butter, and almost none of it is written down anywhere you can check.

This is a restaurant dish from Des Moines and it is younger than any public-domain cookbook, so there is no old printing to hold it to. What there is, is a paper trail in the Iowa community newspaper archives, and it starts in the advertisements rather than in the food pages. The Ames Daily Tribune of 18 February 1978 carries a restaurant's panel on West Old Highway 30 listing that week's specials — "Veal Sweet Breads, Seafood De Jour, Steak De Burgo", for the week of 20 to 25 February. Nobody explains what it is, which means nobody in Ames needed telling. The Boone News-Republican of 18 January 1981 prints a dinner menu where Steak de Burgo heads a list running on through fresh sea scallops, walleye pike almondine and bacon-wrapped petite filet mignon at $4.95. By then the dish is simply a thing an Iowa restaurant serves.

The one dated Iowa printing of the recipe itself that could be opened is in the Cedar Rapids Gazette of 16 October 1984, in a page of recipes from a working chef, John Greve, alongside his coquilles St Jacques and his halibut à la Niçoise. His Steak de Burgo is a quarter stick of butter, three cloves of garlic "minced and mashed with side of knife", a tablespoon of sweet basil, the juice of a lemon, two teaspoons of freshly cracked black peppercorns, half a cup of dry white wine and two pounds of beef tenderloin cut into four-ounce medallions. The method is fast and blunt: butter sizzling in a large pan over medium-high heat, the beef laid in with as much room between the medallions as possible, a little wine poured over each and the same with the lemon juice, the garlic smeared on, pepper and basil over the top, then turned and seasoned again — "when done, flip them over a couple of times and set upon slices of French bread", pan juices drizzled over, served immediately. Basil, then, in the printed Iowa version; the cooks who insist on oregano may well be right about their own kitchens, but nothing reachable here dates that camp. The same goes for the origin. Two Des Moines restaurants are each given the credit in the popular telling, and the Des Moines paper is in no open archive — the city's community archive holds 1889, 1890, 1896 and then nothing until 2002, and the phrase returns not one hit in it. So no house is crowned on this page, and the quantities below were worked out for this page against the 1984 printing.

Why this version works

Butter first, oil alongside. Butter is the flavour and it is also what scorches. A spoonful of neutral oil with it raises the smoke point enough to get a real crust, and the milk solids brown rather than blacken.

The garlic goes on the meat, not into the fat. Smeared onto the surface of a medallion already in the pan, garlic toasts against the beef and stays sweet. Dropped into hot butter on its own it burns in under a minute and turns the whole pan acrid — which is the single most common way this dish is ruined.

Tenderloin cut into medallions, not left whole. Four-ounce pieces an inch and a half thick give you eight seared faces instead of two and cook through in the time the butter takes to brown. A whole roast tenderloin is a different dish and the pan sauce never gets concentrated enough.

Wine and lemon in the pan, not in a sauce made later. Both go in while the meat is cooking, so they lift the fond and reduce into the butter on the spot. There is no separate sauce in this dish and no cream — what reaches the plate is what was in the pan when the steaks came out.

Ingredient notes

Beef: centre-cut tenderloin, trimmed, cut into eight medallions of about four ounces and an inch and a half thick. Ask for the middle of the fillet; the tapered tail end cooks through before it colours. Take it out of the fridge 30 minutes ahead.

Basil: dried sweet basil, rubbed between the fingers as it goes on. This is one of the rare places where dried beats fresh: fresh basil in a hot butter pan goes black and bitter in seconds, while the dried leaf blooms in the fat.

Bread: thick slices of a plain French loaf, day-old if you have it. It is not a side — it goes under the steak and it is the only part of the plate that catches the butter, so cut it wide enough to sit two medallions on.

Garlic: fresh cloves minced and then crushed flat with the side of the knife, which is what the 1984 printing calls for and what makes it stick to the meat. Jarred garlic is packed in water and slides off into the butter to burn.

Step by step

  1. Dry and season. Pat the medallions dry and season them all over with the salt and about half the cracked pepper. Leave them on the board while the pan heats — a wet surface will steam instead of searing.
  2. Get the butter sizzling. Heat a heavy 12-inch skillet over medium-high. Add the oil and 3 tablespoons of the butter and swirl until the foam subsides and the butter is audibly sizzling, about 1 minute.
  3. Sear. Lay the medallions in with as much room between them as the pan allows — two batches rather than a crowded pan. Cook 2 to 3 minutes without moving them, until a deep brown crust forms.
  4. Turn, garlic and seasoning. Turn each piece, smear the garlic over the seared faces, scatter on the basil and the rest of the pepper, and cook 2 minutes more for medium-rare, 3 for medium.
    Four seared beef medallions topped with minced garlic, dried basil and pepper in sizzling butter.
    After turning, put the garlic and basil on the seared faces so the garlic does not burn against the pan. AI-generated illustration.
  5. Wine and lemon. Pour the wine and lemon juice around the meat, not over the crust, and let it bubble hard for 1 minute while you turn the medallions once or twice through it. Add the last tablespoon of butter and swirl the pan off the heat until the juices thicken slightly.
  6. Plate on the bread. Set two medallions on each slice of French bread and spoon every drop of the pan juices over them. Rest 2 minutes, no longer, and take them to the table.
If the butter blackened and the kitchen smells scorched, stop: burnt butter cannot be seasoned back and it will make the beef taste of ash. Move the medallions to a warm plate, wipe the pan out with a paper towel, and start the butter, garlic and wine again in the clean pan for one minute — you lose the fond, but you keep the steak.

Storage and make-ahead

This does not keep well and is not meant to. Leftover medallions hold a day in the fridge and are best sliced cold onto bread with the set butter scraped over them rather than reheated.

If you must reheat, do it in a covered pan with a spoonful of water over the lowest possible heat for 3 minutes. Anything hotter takes a medium-rare medallion straight to grey.

What to serve with it

Something plain enough to stay out of the way: buttered green beans, a wedge of iceberg with blue cheese, or roasted mushrooms cooked in the same pan before the steaks go in. The rest of the dry white wine goes in the glass.

Two browned beef tenderloin medallions on French bread with garlic and basil butter sauce.

From the recipe box / Iowa

Steak de Burgo

Tenderloin medallions cooked hard in butter with garlic and basil, set on French bread so the bread takes everything the pan gives up.

Prep
10 min
Cook
15 min
Total
25 min
Serves
4
Calories
590 per serving

Ingredients

Scale

Instructions

  1. Pat the medallions dry and season with the salt and half the cracked pepper.
  2. Heat the oil and 3 tablespoons of butter in a heavy 12-inch skillet over medium-high until sizzling.
  3. Sear the medallions in an uncrowded pan, 2–3 minutes, until deeply browned.
  4. Turn them, smear the garlic over the seared faces, add the basil and remaining pepper, and cook 2 minutes more for medium-rare.
  5. Pour in the wine and lemon juice, bubble 1 minute, then swirl in the last tablespoon of butter off the heat.
  6. Set two medallions on each slice of French bread, spoon over the pan juices, rest 2 minutes and serve.

Nutrition

Fat38 g (17 g saturated)
Sodium620 mg
Protein45 g
Serving2 medallions with bread
Calories590
Cholesterol190 mg
Carbohydrates15 g (1 g sugar, 1 g fiber)

Nutrition is an estimate calculated from the listed ingredients and is provided as a courtesy, not as dietary advice.

Questions readers ask

Basil or oregano?

The only dated Iowa printing that could be opened, the Cedar Rapids Gazette of 16 October 1984, says sweet basil. The oregano version is real and widely cooked, but no document reachable here dates it, so this page does not rank them — swap it one for one if oregano is what you grew up on.

Is there cream in it?

Not in the printed 1984 version, which is butter, garlic, basil, lemon, pepper and white wine and nothing else. Cream versions exist in Des Moines dining rooms; they are a variation on this, not the other way round.

Can I use a cheaper cut?

Sirloin works if you cut it thick and accept a chewier bite, and the garlic butter carries it. Anything that needs long cooking will not: the whole method is four minutes in a hot pan.

Why French bread under the steak?

Because the 1984 recipe says to set the medallions on it, and because there is no sauce to mop up otherwise. Skip the bread and most of what makes the dish worth cooking stays in the pan.