How to Make Steak Au Poivre

Erik: Hey everyone! Welcome back. Today, we’re going to make this thing called Steak Au Poivre which is also called Peppercorn Steak but I like the Steak Au Poivre thing. Our friends Bill and Alison who live up with a camp, we’ve been up to the camp for a bunch of times. Elsa makes an amazing Steak Au Poivre. And she is not here tonight and we thought let’s try and make this. So, we don’t have the expert here but I want to know—I’m going to look for a couple of different recipes. And we’re going to try this. It’s basic and really simple. We’re going to cook steaks and then make a sauce, or we’re going to serve it with some mashed potatoes that Charlie brought. And I made some cornbread and so here we go. All right, the first thing you have to do is you got to get a bunch of peppercorns and you want to have them coarsely crushed. So, my idea to coarsely crush them is to take them and put them in a zip lock bag. So then, I thought we got a rubber mallet. Is that cracked? That’s not really crushing them, is it? Male: I hope it did really work. Plan B. Erik: Plan B. Male: Is that really working? No. I don’t see that’s working either. Erik: Now, we have our framing hammer. We take this and you pour them onto a plate like that. Male: I think we’re going to need to make more of those Erik: So here are our steaks. You could use T-bones. These were on sales so we got T-bones. You could also use tenderloin. Tenderloins I don’t think have any bone in them, the T-bone do but you have to salt this before we do this. So, if I was professional I’d have like a little bowl. Male: This is the heart attack dinner? Erik: This is not. I mean we don’t eat meat every night. We’re not big red meat eaters. But this is a holiday and our friends are here so—this is going to smoke. Hopefully you have range hood or an exhaust fan or something or maybe you’re cooking in your fire. You could cook this in your fireplace by the way, with a grill and a cast iron. But we’re going to have two cast iron pans here. So, you want to get this until it’s pretty hot, smoking hot. Male: Smoking hot. I shouldn’t shoot the part where you’re consulting the internet. Erik: Yeah. Okay so, our pans are hot. Now, what we’re going to do is we’re going to take our steaks which have been salted. We can brush up a little bit with that salt. And then we’re going to put this in here and press this in. And we’re going to coat this with peppercorns on both sides like that. And then this goes in there and cooks. That’s the Au Poivre part of Steak Au Poivre. All right, so now we cook this and we’re going to turn them. And then we’re going to cook one more because we’re having three steaks and we’re going to make the sauce and we’re done. Okay, so it’s been about five or six minutes, we’re going to turn this. Wow, nice! But you know, this is a simple sauce. We’re going to change it up a little bit. People use cognac or brandy and we’re going to use. Female: Powers. Erik: Powers Irish whisky. Female: And I knew it. Erik: Which is a very inexpensive but really good Irish whiskey. All right, so we’ve turned this. And now, we’re going to wait another I’d say five or six minutes. If they don’t have a bone in, they don’t take as long to cook. So, these are T-bones. Female: How will I know it’s done? Erik: You can use meat thermometer or you can also just cut into the meat to see if it’s done. I think I’ll just cut into the meat. We’re also having a cornbread tonight. And also, Charlie made some really good mashed potatoes to go with this. And I just got a big bag of frozen peas. We’re going to have frozen peas as well. I mean it will not frozen, we’ll cook them. Female: That’s another show. Erik: Throw in a casserole the frozen peas, don’t make fun of me, all right. Female: We can’t help it. Erik: We’re cooking multiple steaks. The ones that are finished, we’re going to cover with the foil here. It smells great in here, full of smoke but it smells great. We’re going to take these juices and put them in the main pan to make the sauce. Okay, always have your fire extinguisher nearby for the next part. You should always have a fire extinguisher in your kitchen and not near the stove. Female: Why? Erik: Because if it’s near the stove and the stove is on fire, you can’t get to the fire extinguisher. We’re going to pour off some of the fat from here, a third or a half a cup Irish whiskey. You can also use cognac but we don’t have any. Female: Is that what you wanted? Erik: Yeah. That was great! Wasn’t that cool? Heavy cream. Female: Can you burn that? Erik: You can burn cream but it’s not going to burn. So, what do you think of that flame? Female: I’m stunned into silence. Erik: That was great man! Be very careful, okay. Be careful if you’re doing something like that. You take a long match. Female: Tie your hair up. Erik: Tie your hair up, take a long match—but you’re burning off the alcohol part of the cognac or the whiskey. Female: Looks like we’re having a bunch of TV dinner. Erik: All right so, I glob a little bit too much cream in there so we’re just going to let that cook down. And we’re going to warm up the mashed potatoes and we’re going to eat. All right you see here, when we pull this across it doesn’t quite fill in quickly. That means that the sauce is thick enough. By the way, I took the liquor and I poured it onto the frying pan. You should take it off the burning stove, off the burner, pour the liquor in and then go back to the stove. That was a wrong thing I did. Okay, a little bit of sauce here. Female: That’s a lot of sauce. Erik: It’s really good, I did it really good! You take your hammer and you can make a steak, okay. So, come in the green-house tell me your Steak Au Poivre stories because this is really good. That’s the call for dinner. Male: Come to dinner. Erik: Is that a fish or a fish moose? Female: That was a frozen fish from the pond. I wonder if that’s coming back up.