The best steak dinner is the one you make at home

NEW YORK – Like many treasured French dishes, steak au poivre abides by certain tenets. It begins with a piece of beef that is crusted in crushed peppercorns and ends with a glossy, peppery pan sauce. But otherwise, it is shaped by the choices of its cook.

Depending on where you dine out, you might envision steak au poivre as a cosy bistro meal or a steakhouse splurge. But it is also the kind of restaurant dish you can achieve at home, for a fraction of the price, and this recipe will ensure a perfect, stress-free dinner.

Choose the right cut of meat

Selecting a richly marbled cut of beef is its own insurance against subpar steak – it is more forgiving if it is slightly overcooked. Lean filet mignon was once favoured for its tenderness, but a boneless rib-eye or strip steak, marbled with fat, has infinitely more flavour and a higher surface area to hold more toasted peppercorns.

Cooking one large rib-eye to share looks more lavish on the plate, and it is easier to cook one steak perfectly than two.

It is hard to say whether a fattier cut of beef even strays from tradition – late American chef-author Anthony Bourdain favoured a pave, while French chef-author Jacques Pepin suggests a shell steak. Even the origins of the dish are unclear.

“Since it’s a flashy dish, with Cognac flambe, it feels more Parisian than Norman to me and more 1920s Paris to be specific,” said Savoir-Faire: A History Of Food In France author Maryann Tebben. “But this may be one of those dishes that is very hard to pin down, since pepper sauces have been popular in French cooking since the Middle Ages.”

Crack peppercorns evenly

Crushing peppercorns is a tedious task – there is simply no way around it. But, as the central flavour of steak au poivre – which translates to pepper steak – it deserves care.

A mortar and pestle do a solid job of containing the pesky errant pieces – peppercorns pop like popcorn when crushed – but pulverise them unevenly.

For uniformly cracked pieces, place the peppercorns in a large rimmed sheet pan and crush small clusters with the flat side of a chef’s knife. Black peppercorns are traditional, though you could swop in a portion of white, green or pink peppercorns, or even whole Sichuan pepper.

All varieties must be freshly crushed, as store-bought cracked pepper tastes dull and dusty in comparison.

Perfect the pan sauce

After the peppercorn-crusted steak is seared, a simple pan sauce is created by softening shallots in the pan’s fat, then adding a splash of alcohol for verve. Cognac is preferred, but brandy tastes just as good.

Late American chef-author Julia Child famously feared flambe, but you can bypass any potential flames by simply deglazing the pan off the heat, allowing the Cognac to dislodge any browned bits with the burner off.

The difference between a loose sauce that runs on the plate and one that glazes your meat is strictly time: Add some stock and allow it to reduce until the sauce becomes nappante, or thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

A spoonful of butter adds a silkiness that balances the pepper’s bite, and heavy cream binds it into a satiny sauce that does not break or separate.

Lastly, plating matters. Fanning your sliced steak on top of the sauce feels more modern – and looks more refined – than dousing the meat in sauce.

The technique for steak au poivre is relatively simple, the results elegant. With the right cut of meat, and some modest tweaks, the classic dish feels timeless.

Steak au Poivre

Using one large, well-marbled rib-eye steak instead of two individual filets is more affordable, flavourful and simpler to cook. Season generously, sear on the stove top, then finish in the oven for even cooking. Let it rest while you prepare your pan sauce. Slice your steak into generous slabs and fan it out over your sauce, a move that makes the meat look more plentiful and the finished dish more lavish than if you drizzled the sauce on top.

Ingredients

Method

1. Remove the meat from the fridge and let sit for 20 minutes.

2. Prepare your peppercorns: Set your peppercorns on a cutting board and, little by little, using the flat side of a large chef’s knife, press a manageable cluster of peppercorns until they are crushed. Transfer to a pie dish or similar vessel.

3. Lightly season both sides of the meat with about ¾ tsp salt total. Be conservative, as you will be preparing a pan sauce from the meat drippings later, and you can always add salt then. Dredge the meat in the peppercorns, coating both sides.

4. Heat the oven to about 220 deg C, then heat the oil in a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high. Once the oil is rippling hot – it should sputter if you flick a peppercorn into it – place the meat in the pan and brown on both flat sides for about four minutes a side. (If you have a sizeable fat cap – a thick layer of white, chewy fat – on either of the smaller sides, sear them off until browned, 30 seconds to one minute a side.) If possible, take the temperature of your meat before adding it to the oven, so you have a sense of how long it will need to cook.

5. Transfer the pan to the oven and cook to desired doneness, about three minutes for medium-rare (the temperature should be about 55 deg C). Remove the pan from the oven and transfer the meat to a cutting board to rest.

6. Add the shallot to the skillet and cook over medium-high until softened, stirring frequently, for about one minute. Turn off the burner, then pull the hot skillet off the heat. Add the Cognac. If the reaction between the heat and alcohol produces a flame, do not panic. It will subside in a minute.

7. Return to the stove top, stir to deglaze and cook over medium-high for one to two minutes, until the liquid evaporates. Add the stock and cook until thickened and saucy, for six to eight minutes.

8. When the sauce is almost done reducing, cut the steak crosswise into 1.3cm slices.

9. Once the sauce has reduced until thick enough to coat a spoon, pull it off the heat. Whisk in the butter, then the heavy cream if using, and season with salt and pepper. Drizzle the sauce on a serving plate and transfer the steak on top. Serve immediately.

Serves two

Tips

The rib-eye has a good amount of fat, which lends a lot of flavour, but you can also use a strip steak of similar proportions for a slightly cheaper option, or filet mignon (consider two 170g to 230g pieces, each about 5cm thick) if you are feeling fancy. NYTIMES