Restaurant Steaks... I usually avoid ordering an expensive steak at a restaurant for many reasons... I can make a better tasting steak, that's bigger and a lot cheaper than most restaurants. When I cook a steak, depending on my mood, but I might bbq it, pan fry it, pan grill it and I might marinade it at least a half a dozen different ways or else will use my own dry spice rub on them. But for years and years I'd heard of steak prepared with a peppercorn sauce and I've tried preparing a steak w/peppercorn sauce but with pedestrian results in that it tasted good, but it didn't knock me out. Recently I discovered recipes for steak au poivre and just looking at the ingredient list and the preparation of many varied recipes for this dish, I just knew that it was gonna be special and that I HAD to make this dish as THIS was what the peppercorn sauce was meant to be. After reviewing at least 20 different recipes, I decided to settle on a recipe by Julia Childs and Jacques Pepin found on one of the many blogs. Sorry, I don't use exact measures when I cook so I can't give you exact amounts, sorry. As most cooks do, I decided to add my own twist to make it my own...
24 ounce choice Porterhouse steak
whole black peppercorns
whole white peppercorns
whole Sichuan peppercorns (anise pepper)
pickled whole green peppercorns
Hawaiian coarse sea salt
scallions
king oyster mushrooms
red bell pepper
Cognac
heavy (whipping) cream
beef or veal stock (I used canned beef broth)
butter
garlic
onion
The prep time required is the most time I've ever spent preparing a single steak, but the results were oh so worth it! To prepare this dish, a bit of forethought and planning is necessary. This thick cut of meat, I want it at room temperature so I took it out of the fridge about 3 hours before I was going to cook it, otherwise, it might end up being too rare for my preference. Also take the butter out at this time as well. For your normal 12-16 ounce steaks 1-2 hours at room temperature will be just fine. Normally I cook my steaks to medium, but I decided to go for medium rare this time. It's difficult for me to correctly cook a thick steak to med-rare for me because I don't like it rare, so I was pleased that this steak was cooked to the perfect temperature.
Crush peppercorns. I decided to include the Sichuan peppercorns as they add a little extra heat and some citrus notes to the food which I felt would be an excellent twist. I used a mortar and pestle, but others use a heavy pan or hammer to smash the peppercorns. Once roughly crushed, I added my very coarse sea salt which I like because when you bite into one of those large crystals, your mouth lights up with that salty goodness. In the future, I will add the salt directly to the steak for better control of the salt. Pat the steak dry and then generously coat both sides of the steak generously with the pepper mixture and then salt to your liking. I made a huge amount of the peppercorn mixture so I'll have it ready for my other steak that I tossed in the freezer...
Turn on oven to 200 degrees and put your dinner plate in the oven to warm it. Slice the mushrooms and vegetables and scallions. For my dish I decided to serve with medium grain white rice and some baby bok choy I found at an Asian market. Normally this dish is served with potatoes and some kind of green veggie, but my potatoes were looking pretty sad and I didn't want to take the time to peel and cook potatoes whereas I can just dump some rice into my auto-rice cooker as I was pressed for time. Thankfully I have a pretty well stocked kitchen and the only ingredient that I didn't have was the heavy cream so I had to make a run to the market for the cream and I decided to grab a fresh baked baguette from La Brea Bakery to use to soak up every drop of this Cognac peppercorn cream awesomeness.
Using a large heavy cast iron (or heavy stainless steel) skillet heat it to medium high, drop in a large dollop of butter, coat the pan and as soon as all the milk solids stop smoking, this basically creates ghee and the smoke tempurature is actually around 450 degrees like most cooking oils and add your steak to the pan. DO NOT fuss with the steak... you want it to brown and carmelize to create flavor and the brown bits that will be the base of your cream sauce. My steak happens to be around 2 inches thick so it will take a bit longer to cook than a more normal, thinner steak. About 5-6 minutes per side, after I flip the steak, I then add the onions and bell peppers and garlic to let them cook and they will add another layer of flavors to the sauce.
Aahh, the French... I admit that I don't dine at French restaurants very often as I tend to prefer more simply prepared foods and I rarely cook French recipes because of the extensive amount of food prep that is often required. But this dish didn't look to complex to handle and the people who did cook this dish and wrote reviews generally raved on and on about how fantastic a meal they had.
As soon as the steak is cooked to your preference, with a potholder grab your plate out of the oven an put the steak on the plate, loosely cover with foil (optional foil) and put back in the oven to keep the meat hot while you prepare the sauce. Toss in a few slices of the baguette to warm them at this time. Butter or not is optional. After I removed the steak, I added the large King oyster mushroom slices to the pan and covered them with the onions and bell peppers and then to speed the cooking, I added a large splash of the beef stock to the pan. Cook the 'shrooms for about a minute on each side and then remove all the veggies.
To make the sauce: take the pan off the flame and add the Cognac and then heat to evaporate the alcohol. For one or two steaks, I'd recommend at least a 1/4 cup of Cognac so that I'll have LOTS of this incredible sauce. I added my whole stems of pickled green peppercorns here. Careful about the Cognac igniting, to avoid that, I quickly added about 1/2 cup of the beef broth to deglaze and 1/2 cup of the cream and using a silicone spatula, loosen all the lovely brown bits from the pan and reduce the sauce by about half. Grab your steak out of the oven and add the juices from the steak to the pan, return steak to the oven and add any juices from the veggies you also set aside to the pan. When the sauce begins to thicken, add a nice big dollop of butter to add richness, flavor, sheen and thickenss. Taste the sauce... it will probably have plenty of salt, but if you think it needs more seasoning, adjust to your palate.
I then removed the steak from the oven, added the rice, onions and red bell peppers and bok choy to my plate, my peppercorn sauce has thickened beautifully and I spooned my sauce over everything! Voila! Steak au Poivre a la Julia, Jacques & Darrell!!!
This dish turned out to have exquisite bold flavors. I was lucky the steak was cooked to the perfect temperature and the meat was tender and packed with flavor. At a restaurant, if they charged me $80-100 for this dish, I'd happily pay it and feel I got more than my money's worth, it is such an amazing dish! For under $10 this was the most amazing steak I've ever eaten! AND I make a great steak... but this preparation is up a couple notches!
It takes a bit more time, ingredients, advance planning and effort, but the dish is awesome.
In my travels, I stopped into a market far from my home and found a Ralphs that was selling huge choice Porterhouse steaks for less than $4/lb! Slightly marbled, certainly not the best cut I've seen but it was one fat bad boy... so I grabbed two of the best looking ones. At my local Gelsons, comparable steaks sell for around $15/lb or more.
Many years ago, Hughes Market (bought by Ralphs) used to have a beef contract with a cattle ranch and they used to have some fantastic cuts of choice beef for just pennies more than their select grade. The choice cuts would only appear in the upscale neighborhoods where they had stores and after Ralphs bought them, that tradition continued for several more years. Today, Ralphs labels their choice cuts Angus and charges a large premium over their select cuts so I was jazzed when I found these steaks at this price. The Porterhouse steak is the same cut as a T-bone steak only with a larger portion of the filet attached to the bone. The Porterhouse is my 2nd favorite cut behind only the Ribeye cut which is the same cut as a Prime Rib cut as the Ribeyes can have magnificent marbling, so, so tender and a wealth of flavor. There is usually less bone than a Porterhouse, although I do love to chew and gnaw on the bones.
There are so many possible variations to this recipe... some used mustard which I found perplexing and did not use mustard. Some omitted the Cognac... I immediately dismissed those recipes. Some recipes called for half and half or didn't use any cream/milk at all and I again dismissed those recipes as I wanted to stick to a guideline of being a fairly classic rendition of this recipe.
