Ultimate Steak Frites Recipe

If your steak doesn't look like this, and your fries don't sound like this, you didn't really make steak frites. We'll begin by seasoning our steaks. Here I've got a couple beautiful rib-eyes that I'm going to cover generously with salt, making sure to flip them in the process so we cover both sides, even propping them up like this to make sure I season the edges as well. The amount of salt you use will differ depending on what cut of steak you're using. For instance, if you decide to make your steak frites with a hanger steak, which actually happens to be my favorite cut of meat in the entire cow, you'd want to salt it more since hanger's a leaner cut of beef than a rib-eye. But today, I thought we'd go fancy for all of you watching and use a couple beautiful rib-eyes. Once our steaks are fully seasoned, we'll place this into the fridge overnight, which will give them flavor and dry out the crust so we can get a better sear. While our steak is brining, let's move on to make our fries. First, fill a bowl with cold water and set it off to the side, then cut a thin slice off your potato so you can lay it flat like this, and then using a ruler as your guide, cut a slice of potato that's a quarter of an inch thick. Normally when food gets stuck to your knife like this, your first instinct is usually to take it off, but here you want to leave it. You can use it as a guide to cut your next slice, giving you the perfect built-in measurement tool for every single cut. Once you've fully sliced a potato, grab the ruler once again and use it to cut a fry that's a quarter of an inch thick on all sides. And now just follow that exact same technique, using each fry you cut as a guide for cutting the next one. And as you cut, toss those fries in the cold water to prevent them from browning. As a next step, we're going to give our french fries an extra quick rinse. This is to get off any excess starch before cooking, and you can see what already came off at the bottom of the bowl here. And then into a big pot they go, along with some water, a big handful of salt, and a sprinkle of baking soda. Once it eventually comes to a boil, turn off the heat and let this sit for three minutes. The goal with this step is to partially cook the fries, but the baking soda in there also does some fancy science to give you crispier fries later. After three minutes have passed, transfer the fries to a paper towel lined baking sheet, and then carefully spread them all out to give them even space to cool down. I thought I'd have some fun and give you a really cool french fry time lapse. When your fries are done, place these in the fridge for 30 minutes, or preferably overnight, left uncovered. While our fries and steak are in the fridge, we're going to move on to make our sauce. Classic french bistros often serve a sauce with their steak frites, and for me, it's not complete without the sauce. The sauce is really what brings the entire plate together. For our sauce, we'll add some mayonnaise to a blender, along with some sour cream, Dijon mustard, that believe it or not, I brought back from my last trip to Paris, as well as a few cloves of garlic. Now we'll blend this up, making sure that garlic is completely blended into the sauce. You'll probably need to scrape down the edges of the blender a couple times to make sure that garlic really gets fully mixed. Now we add in my favorite part of the sauce, these beautiful fresh herbs. We'll use a combination here of fresh parsley, fresh chives, and fresh tarragon. Then we'll add in some fresh lemon zest. This, along with those herbs and everything else we're adding, is going to make a sauce that has everything that our steak doesn't. It's why I think a sauce is so important with steak frites. You can customize and add whatever you want in there to perfectly balance out the flavor of the steak and the fries. Last but not least, make sure to use all that lemon juice, as well as some fresh cracked pepper, and a little pinch of salt. Now, just blend it up until smooth, giving it a quick taste to make sure it doesn't need more seasoning, and you'll be left with a beautiful, balanced, vibrant green sauce. This will go into the fridge until you're ready to use it, which reminds me, it's finally time to fry our french fries. We'll cook our fries in batches and fry them not once, but twice. This first fry is at a lower temperature, and it's what I call the cooking stage, with the goal being to cook our fries most of the way through. We're not going to get too much color on the fries during this phase. We'll get that later when we fry again. Making french fries at home is one of those things that's actually not easy. Getting a crispy french fry is difficult, so I will admit, I usually have a couple bags of frozen french fries in my freezer, since it's harder to make them than you might think, and because some of these can be pretty darn good. I should also mention that we fry these in two separate batches each time, so that we don't overcrowd the pot when frying. Looks like my second batch here is done. They're not quite fully crispy yet, but I can't wait for you to hear what they sound like when we actually finish them. We need to give our oil a bit of time to heat up to that higher temperature now, so I'm going to move it off to the side while we make our steak. To cook our steak, we'll go oil into a cast iron pan and get that oil ripping hot. Get it to the point that you see very light smoke. Just before searing, we'll add black pepper to each of our steaks. My friend Babish gave me this pepper mill as a present, so every time I use it, I think of him. If you're watching, Babish, thank you. I love this thing. All right, time to cook. Right as that steak goes down, I'm going to press it down in every little corner to make sure it's making full contact with the whole bottom of the pan, and if you like, you can add on a couple weights to make sure it really gets that hard sear. After I feel an initial crust has formed on the bottom, I'm going to constantly move my steak around, just to make sure I let the oil climb up into every nook and cranny to get us the perfect crust. Once you feel like you've gotten the perfect crust, go ahead and flip. Once we've flipped our steak, we're going to turn down the heat and add in some butter, some crushed cloves of garlic, a little bit of thyme, and a squeeze of lemon, which we're going to throw in there to get some extra flavor too. When butter basting, I like to push all the aromatics above the steak so they stay up there as I spoon that flavorful butter all across the steak to finish cooking it and give it that incredible flavor. Butter basting is absolutely something you should learn if you cook a lot of steaks. I've done it so many times now that I can literally just do it with my eyes closed. Maybe I'll do the rest of the video with my eyes closed. Actually, I won't, because I have to fry those french fries in a second, and I think that doesn't set a very good example. I've cooked enough steaks now that if I just poke it a few times, I can generally tell if it's done or not. And I can tell that after resting, this one's going to be perfect medium. I know, I know, I'm supposed to like medium rare, I get it. I like medium, it's good. One of the best things Gordon Ramsay ever taught me was to rest those aromatics on top of the steak once you finish cooking, and then hit it with a few nice spoonfuls of that hot, delicious butter. I'm not going to cook this second steak. I'll save that for one of you if you decide to come over later for steak frites, but for now, we need to get back to those french fries. Actually, we might have to wait a little bit, because I forgot to turn on my heat. We'll be right back. With our beautiful steak resting off to the side, it's time to finish the fries. In we go into our hotter oil. This time, we're frying at a much higher oil temperature, and we don't have to fry in batches. For this step, you shouldn't need to fry for too long. I've barely had time to say anything, and already mine are ready. Listen to this. Nice. Quickly, while the fries are still hot, hit them with your favorite seasoning, and make sure they get a generous sprinkle of salt, and then give them a nice toss. I'm just going to play some nice music for you for a second, and let you watch this, because how great do those look? One more thing with the french fries before we plate. I need you to listen to this crunch. Fries done. Let's cut our steak and plate. Even though I've probably cooked thousands of steaks, I still get nervous every time when I go to cut into one. I get nervous mostly that it'll be medium rare instead of medium. I'm just kidding. I like medium rare too. I'm going to slice the whole ribeye all the way down at a nice angle, because I think that'll look pretty for our plating. But let's see how we did on the cook. That is as perfect medium as I think I've ever seen on a steak. I'll let you be the judge of that. All right, time for plating. I'll leave this here for my sauce, and as for my steak, I'll curl it nicely around the side of my plate. We still got plenty of scraps over here for snacking on. Wow. And then, on go my fries in a nice big pile. Here, let me turn that for you, so you can actually see what's going on. And to finish, you can't forget about that green sauce. And there it is, everybody. The best steak frites you will ever see. Well, maybe outside of France. I'd say something if my mouth wasn't so full right now.