Nut-Crusted Parisien Ribeye with Taro & Pumpkin Butter

This dish here and the previous one are just about the max as far as effort spent trying to be artsy and creative with food (at least so far)!

I bought a few pieces of ribeye, and basically, as the title says, rolled it in this mixture consisting of demerara sugar, chopped raw brazil nuts, and this spice blend called Parisien Bonnes Herbes, which is made up of chives, dill weed, French basil, French tarragon, chervil and white pepper. So again, I threw these ribeyes into the toaster oven, lined with diced taro, and kept the oven going for who knows how long at about 350 degrees.

I took them out a bit too late, so the ribeye was pretty much well done, but oh well. At least I didn't blow an expensive filet or something from Omaha steaks, and anyway all that flavoring really made up for this not being medium. The taro was an interesting addition and something I would do again. Some of the taro pieces were crispy whereas others were moist (those that were in closer contact with the meat), but I liked that juxtaposition of textures and even taste (the moist ones were more meaty and herby whereas the crisp ones were more purely taro in flavor). And you know what else? TJ's pumpkin butter is absolutely fabulous! It's a bit on the sweet side (more grams of sugar and more calories than an equivalent serving size from the Williams Sonoma variety) but still a crowd pleaser nonetheless. That, along with the oil from the nuts, and the sweet demerara sugar, probably did enough to keep this from being a dry dish. I topped the pumpkin butter with some of the remaining chopped Brazil nuts. I think the only downsides were that the taro looked kind of like chicken breast (probably should have mashed it instead), and the red from some cranberry sauce would have made this prettier rather than the tannish color of the pumpkin butter.

Yay! I would totally vouch for that Parisien spice blend and would definitely serve this to... well not everyone but maybe some of the more adventurous eaters. Admittedly, I don't take total credit for this creation, as it was inspired by a similar dish I saw on TV once, but I believe that had some other type of starch on the bottom (possibly potatoes?), and had seared lamb instead of ribeye. I don't think the lamb was encrusted with anything besides pepper, but she did have the spinach and the pumpkin butter in this tiered fashion