Perfect Steak Frites At Home

Well, hello, it's been a while since we've done a recipe, hasn't it? And what better way to start than with one of my most favorite bites of food of all time? A luscious, juicy, perfectly cooked, medium-rare steak with a nice sauce is great. But what about crispy, hot, salty French fries? You know, it's like the perfect combination, and it is steak and fries. To begin, we'll be prepping our fries for the first fry, then we'll cook our steak all the way through. While that rests, I'll showcase two sauce options. One that I think is better, and one that is easier. Then we'll come back for our final fry and plate up. There are two ways to make frites in today's modern society. You make them yourself, which, obviously, there's so much honor in that. You can tell people you made them from scratch if you have all the control on the final product. So we're gonna make them first, and then I'll show you another version that's even easier. But let's start with this because this is way cooler. Russet potatoes. You're gonna take each of them, and you're going to peel them completely. So I'm peeling these over parchment paper, also. You don't have to do this, but anything that requires peeling and a ton of peels, instead of doing it all in your sink and throwing it down the garbage disposal, you could very easily do it over parchment paper, and you're clean instantly. Instant clean board. And then you're gonna cut your potato into fries. Simple as that. If you don't have one of those, I totally get it. Guess what? You can just do it with a knife. First, I'm gonna flatten this out, right? I'll move that guy over. You're gonna start with about a quarter of an inch cut into a quarter of an inch board, or plank, if you will. You're gonna take each of these planks, and you're gonna do the exact same length cut, a quarter of an inch the long way. And what you end up with is batons, also called French fries. That's it. Cut them as thick or as thin as you want. I would recommend not going any thicker than about a quarter of an inch around. We have three and a half quarts of water in here boiling, and to that I'm gonna add two teaspoons of baking soda and one tablespoon of white distilled vinegar. This is gonna help form that skin around the French fries that you want, and also gonna speed up the Maillard reaction. We want crispy, crackly exterior, fluffy interior. That's gonna help with that. And then, of course, I season my water just a bit with salt, because you want the fries to taste just as delicious on the outside as they do on the inside. You ever eat a big French fry, and it's salty on the outside, but 90% of it is unsalted? That's because they didn't salt the water. Fries are gonna go into our boiling water, and we're just gonna barely, barely, barely cook them. It's a par boil. I don't want them cooked all the way through. They should not fall apart after this. So we're gonna give these a little stir. When you do stir, they're probably gonna notice, oh, the water stopped boiling. Don't worry. Just let it go. We don't need to be too worried, because the water's still just hot enough to par cook them. It may come up back to a boil. It may not. Just monitor them closely. Do not cook until they're completely cooked through. We want them, like, 50% of the way cooked through. One to three minutes, roughly. So how do you check if they're done? You just take one out. Try to find one that's average size. Pop that guy out. We're just gonna check him. How's he looking? Ow. So the outside's starting to get cooked. It's definitely floury, and there's a little bit of the potato starch getting on my fingers. If I bend it and crack it, see how it didn't snap? It's, like, kind of raw, kind of cooked. Done. It didn't go... It just kind of gently broke. If I squeeze it with my fingers, it's not gonna turn into mashed potatoes. They're ready to remove. Drain them on a wire rack. You're gonna want to move quickly here so they don't overcook. You're better off pulling these a little too early than pulling them too late. So think about it like that. If you're like, ooh, I don't know if they're quite there yet. Maybe I should let them go longer. Don't. I'm gonna shake these out just so that they're evenly dispersed. You may even want to spread these between two sheets, because these will continue to cook. So I am gonna get another sheet tray and just spread these out, because this is gonna cause them to cook way more than I want them to. All this steam is gonna keep cooking them, okay? Let them cool completely. You can even pop them in the fridge to cool them faster. And then, once they're cool, we do need to dry them off. We're just gonna gently dab them dry. You really want to get them as dry as you can. This is a little trick. You don't have to do this, but it does help get them crispier. So we're gonna dump these into a bowl. We're just gonna add a little bit of potato starch to that and just give them a toss. It's gonna help crisp them up, but it's also gonna help keep them separated. Shake off that excess, shake off that excess. Take your fries, gently spread amongst a clean sheet tray. Repeat with the rest of your fries, and you're gonna take that bad boy and pop it into a freezer until frozen. When you're ready to fry your fries, vegetable oil about roughly 3 quarts in a 7-quart pot. Now, the first fry is at 315 Fahrenheit. We're just gonna lower these bad boys in carefully, frozen, in batches, not all at once. Now, right now, we're just forming the exterior crust. We're gonna dry them out, but we're not gonna get the full color. We're not taking them all the way yet. So as soon as the bubbling starts to subside and your fries are starting to get dried out on the exterior, they're going to remove them, drain them. Now, the fries are ready for their second fry, but first, steak. There are many ways to cook the steak, and many of them are good, honestly. I'm not gonna sit here and s*** on the options, but 9 times out of 10, when I cook a steak, I don't do sous vide, I don't do reverse sear, I don't do some sort of fat bath. I've done those before, and they do work well, but the tried-and-true method that every chef on Earth has always used and always delivers is the classic pan sear butter-based method. You've seen it before, but there are a crucial few tips you need to know. First of all, steak choice. We have a beautiful New York strip. You can see the beautiful marbling in these steaks. They've been tempered to room temperature. Every restaurant I've ever worked in, every restaurant that I know that has Michelin stars, they temp their steak because the surface temperature being room temperature makes a big difference in the maillard. If it is colder and you go in with a colder steak, it will take you longer to get a maillard. You want that maillard as soon as possible so you can avoid overcooking the steak. Period. End of story. You can dispute me in the comments. I don't give a f***. Start with a New York strip or a ribeye, and make sure it is at least 1 1⁄2 to 2 inches thick. If it has a really thick fat cap, one thing I will do is I will score the fat cap. So, carefully, I'll get a sharp knife. And you can do it once. You go down one direction. Don't cut through the meat. Just through the fat. About 1⁄4 inch apart each. And then you can go again the other direction to kind of create a diamond-shaped pattern. And that's just gonna help render that fat. It's gonna prevent the steak from curling. This is especially important for something like a New York strip because the New York strips do love to curl. Now, always pat it dry. I want no wet steaks going in here. Make it as dry as physically possible. The beauty of a 1 1⁄2 to 2 inch thick steak is it is almost impossible to overseason this. So we're gonna season it very generously with kosher salt. This is Diamond Kosher, the greatest salt on earth. And look, I want total coverage of the salt. Just like that. Give it a little rub. And you'll notice a lot of that salt falls off. That is why you maximally salt. A little bit of pepper. Same thing. Rub it around. Flip. Repeat on the other side. Season high in the air for maximum coverage. Then you just drag that steak through all that seasoning and pick all that up. We're ready to sear. 12-inch pan. Medium-high heat. High-temperature oil. Vegetable oil, canola oil, avocado oil. You need to do just enough to coat the pan. About 2 to 3 tablespoons. I don't want it drowning in the oil, but I also don't want it, you know, barren. A little trick I like to do is take my remaining paper towels and I'll just let it sit on the paper towels because that salt is going to draw moisture and you do not want any of that. Moisture is your enemy. This oil is getting pretty hot. You want it, like, just barely smoking. Ideally, you don't want to take it to the smoke point, but look, it happens. If you see a little bit of smoke, put the steak in. Stainless steel is optimal for this kind of a steak. You can do cast iron. People love cast iron. But I actually prefer stainless steel. Pan's hot. We're going to take our nice, dry steak. We're going to gently lay that in. Away from us. Press it into the pan. And then you want full contact. Full contact sear. It's okay to press it down for a little bit. Just try to avoid touching the actual pan because that's going to solidify that position so it's not curling in any part of that steak. We're going to let that sear for about two to three minutes and we'll check the underside. A little secret, if you have a steak that's being finicky and you want to lay it down, you could put, like, a tray on top. But these are fire. These are little chef's press. You just... They're lightly weighted. It's pretty thick. So after, like, two, three minutes has elapsed, just be sure to check the underside. If it looks like it needs more time, give it more time. But mine does not, so I'm going to give it a flip. We have a beautiful, crispy crust. Now we're going to let that sear for another minute or so on the other side. And then after that, one thing I like to do is bring the steak to the edge of the pan, lower the heat to medium. See that fat cap? We're then going to turn the fat cap towards the edge of the pan, tilt the pan, and crisp that fat cap up. We're also going to help render that fat cap. This is probably smarter to do with tongs than doing it with a spoon. At this stage, we're then going to add some lightly crushed garlic to the pan, a handful of fresh thyme, and a few tablespoons of butter. Honestly, a lot of butter. Probably closer to a quarter cup. The heat is medium, medium-high-ish. Get your butter to melt. You can put your garlic and your thyme on your steak. And once that butter's mostly melted, push the steak to the far end of the pan, turn the pan towards you, and repeatedly baste your steak with your butter over and over and over. And you're going to do this for about one to two minutes, or just until the internal temperature registers to 135 Fahrenheit, which is medium-rare. That is the only right temperature. But if you'd like it cooked more, then just keep going until it's cooked to your liking. Now, once your steak is beautifully seared, you got brown butter. It's herbaceous. It's garlicky. And it's cooked to your liking. Carefully remove that. Place it to the side to rest. A lot of the time, I'll take that finished garlic onto the steak nicely. Just give it a few more once-overs with your browned, flavored butter. Let that rest for five minutes. At this stage, what would you do? Just sit around? No, sauces. There are two sauces for you today. I've got a favorite of mine, and then a much easier one. We're starting with the favorite, Le Entrecôte sauce, inspired by Relais, which is a shop that's known for their steak and frites in Paris. I think mine's a little better. Parsley. You're going to thinly slice that. About a quarter cup, finely chopped. I usually, like, rough chiffonade it, and then I'll run my knife through again. And that's how you get a real fine chop. Same exact amount, finely chopped. Tarragon. You know, make it a little flanch. That's fresh tarragon, not dried. Shallot and garlic, both thinly sliced. We have one cup of butter. A quarter of that is going to go into a small pan. Medium heat. Once that butter is melted and bubbling, but not brown, we're going to add our shallot garlic in. You don't really want to hear a sizzle because we're sweating the veg. I don't want any color on it. It's okay if you do, but ideally not. Tiny bit of salt to sweat the veg. That's going to draw moisture out. That's going to make it nice and sloppy wet. Get that mixed in with the butter. The heat's still around medium, medium-low if needed. If it's getting cooked too fast, you can always reduce that heat. I'm going to let that sweat about two to four minutes until the vegetables are really nice and soft. For the remaining amount of butter, that remaining three-quarter cup of butter, while that's going, just melt it. You can melt it in a microwave. You can melt it in a pot. I don't care. I'm going to melt it in the microwave. BRB. All right, that's done. Heat is off. I've got a high-power blender right here. Now, depending on your blender, you may need to let this cool down, but I don't care. God, that smells delectable, brother. Pop our blender on, and we're going to add two teaspoons of capers, two tablespoons of Dijon mustard, a nice one. Grape lebon works, but I prefer a nicer one. Literally any other brand. One tablespoon of shiradashi. You can get that at an Asian market. You can also skip it. It's not a necessity, but it tastes real good. Two teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce, one teaspoon white distilled vinegar, pinch of salt, five leaves of sage, and seven leaves of basil, roughly, right? Give or take. It's not that big of a deal. Then we're going to add one fresh egg yolk. You're going to add six anchovy fillets. Now, remember those chopped herbs earlier. You're going to add two-thirds of each of those. Just leave a third behind. We're going to stir that into the sauce later. Got my melted butter here. Halve it to the side. We're going to blend this on high speed until as smooth as possible. Very simply, as this is blending, you're going to reduce to a medium speed, and then you're going to slowly stream in this butter. You may not use all of it. You may only use half. Use your eyes. All right. That's actually roughly where I want it, so I left about a quarter of the butter behind. You could use all of it. It won't hurt the sauce. I'm looking for a specific color, and I'm looking for more of like a medium light green. It's nice and thick. We're going to stir in the remaining herbs, and I also want to add about a tablespoon of very thinly sliced chives. The thinner you can go, the better. This is like every chef's favorite flex. It's a great way to tell