How a Master French Chef Makes Steak Frites At Home | Fundamental French Cooking | Bon Appétit

Steak au poivre and frites is probably the dish that you see in every single bistro in Paris. It's a dish that is extremely dear to my heart. I love it. I'm going to wash the potatoes and then cut them in pieces and blanch them. French fries, also known as frites in French. I think technically they're not even French. They're from Belgium. But anyway, we'll take the credit. We have the potatoes. We're in America. We've got the russets. What you're looking for really is some, like a type of potato that's really high in starch. This is what creates this little fluff in the exterior after blanching that when it'll fry has these little micro nooks that will literally get super crispy. Why I like these potatoes, they're quite long, which is what you want to have a really nice long fry. I do not peel them just because I think that the skin is delicious. The idea is to cut the potatoes. I like to do it by hand. Also, I feel like you really get to adapt to the size of the potato. What you want is a big knife. You just cut the base and then you have something super steady. So you want to be quite precise in terms of thickness. I'm looking for something, I feel like a bit smaller than a thumb. Batonnet is what we call them. Batonnet means literally like a stick. If you start having different sizes, you're going to get something that's very uneven and some fries are going to be way overcooked and some are going to be still a bit raw in the center. I'm just going to fill this bowl with water. This is why you're rinsing it. You're taking the starch out of the exterior. So the idea is to start by blanching them in salted water and then finishing them twice in a oil that has different temperatures to really get that perfectly crispy fry. I'm just going to let it under running water just to make sure all the starch is out. Once the water is completely clear, a bit like rice, you're good to go. So I have hot water. We're going to put it up to boil. Salt, heavily, but not too much. And then once it boils, we'll cook them for roughly four minutes. The first step is really just to cook the potato through. If the potatoes don't have space to kind of steam out by themselves, they're going to overcook just because they're on top of one another and that they go straight in the fridge. The fries are in the fridge. Now it's time to start working on the sauce au poivre. The idea is to dice very thinly those shallots and saute them. And it adds really, first of all, texture, taste, and overall just this nice umami balance. There are many different ways to like dice shallots. I like this very old school way. You kind of like have this layer that's quite thin. We're going to smash it. And this allows you to have a perfect like julienne. Julienne is basically a very thin strip of vegetable that you cut. There are a bunch of different classic cutting techniques. Brunoise is the small cube. Julienne is a long strip. And then we have paisanne, which is like a bigger chunk that we'll use mostly for sauces. Being precise is like everything, you know, it's not that important, but it is. You can do anything in life, you know, a bit roughly and it'll be fine. But being precise just brings this extra layer of love and care to any dish that can't really be explained, but definitely felt. So now I have my shallots. I'm going to work with different kinds of peppers. The first one is the green peppercorn in brine. Sauce au poivre means peppercorn sauce or pepper sauce. So the green peppercorn is really here for the brine, for the aroma, for the texture, but not necessarily for the deep heat. The deep heat is going to come from the black peppercorn that is going to be on the crust of the steak. Here are the toasted black peppercorns, dried, very fragrant. My favorites are Sarawak, that really has this intense aroma. In French, we would say animal, which means animal. It has very beastly, kind of gamey kind of smell. It's delicious with steak. What you want to do is start crushing them. You want to have texture when you're cooking the steak, but you don't want them whole. In order to get the dish together at the same time with the fries that are hot and the sauce that is hot, the steak is perfectly tempered, it's all about organization. What you want right now is to make sure that the first oil bath is going before you cook your steak. Start heating up the oil so that they get ready for the second blanch. This is the oil I used. Peanut oil, I love to use it because it gives this very crispy fry, even more so than other oils. Peanut oil has a really high smoking point, so for frying, it's ideal. I filled the cast iron to like three quarters to make sure that it has like space to kind of bubble. For the first fry, so we're around 150 to 160 degrees Celsius and the second fry, we're aiming something between 175 to 182, 183. So right now I have my steaks. I got different cuts just because I think it's interesting to see what people in general use. So this is a filet. This is what most restaurants in Paris use to do steak au poivre. The filet for me is a bit boring because yes, it's tender. So the sauce kind of takes a big part of the show in the dish, but it's not very interesting in texture. I think pieces of meat where there is a bigger fat ratio bring a nicer crust and just more flavor in the end. It kind of helps the sauce go to another dimension. Here, I got a Denver steak that I discovered when I moved here in New York. What I love about this piece of beef is just how well balanced it is when it's cooked. The marbling, the toughness in a way is a good thing. You know, you want meat to kind of not just melt in your mouth, but also have this kind of chew because it's interesting. It brings contrast with the sauce that's extremely creamy and heavy. And for me, that's the greatest piece of meat for steak au poivre. Roll the steak, a bit of the pepper, really give that crust salt. It's a lot of peppercorn, but I kind of spread it in different ways so that you're not eating a big chunk all at once. The steak on the side, it's going to rest for a bit just for me to get time to just blanch the potatoes again. The goal is really to touch the fry and not feel any sort of moisture. You don't want like wet fries. They should be dry and cold. The oil is now at 150 degrees Celsius, which is the perfect temperature for the first fry. It's going to roughly take five minutes. And then for the last fry, it's going to be a bit shorter, probably three, three and a half. The first fry is to create a protective layer that is not going to soak up all of the grease from the frying oil. In France, we say pellicule. In English, it's like the first layer of crispiness. See, no color. And the fries don't look like much right now, but we see that they're completely cooked. I think this is a good test, kind of like breaking them apart and just trying one. That's how I'm going to fry. While I wait for the fries to cook, I'm going to return to the steak and start my pan, getting it to high heat so that it's perfect for cooking. And the idea when you're cooking with stainless steel is really to heat the pan quite high to ensure you have a nice crust and that it doesn't stick to the pan. Now, at the end of the day, that's all you're looking for when you're doing steak au poivre is this contrast of nice crust with something that's extremely creamy and decadent that kind of balances the textures. We're going to do the water test and see if we put some water, if it evaporates, if it kind of like bubbles and stays inside the pan, then we're good to go. Put the pan on the side for a sec. True, true, true. We're going to use our peanut oil, you know? The idea is not to go crazy on the oil. You want enough to kind of like evenly coat the bottom of the pan, but that's pretty much it. Back here, high heat. Steak goes in. I'm going to put some weights. Weights are great. You can either have like dedicated like meat weights or just like put another pan on top. This will help get a really nice crust and even cook. That's perfect. Fries are done. So now they're resting for a bit. You really want to hear the pan sizzle and kind of like toast the peppercorn, like the black peppercorn sometimes, depending on like the varietal, when it gets toasty, it smells like, I don't know, like a cow peel or something in a good way. Yeah, we have a really nice crust right now. We're going to flip it. Beautiful. That's exactly what you want. For steaks, I like to go, say rare. I feel like in France, that's how we eat steaks mostly. Medium rare, but nothing above that. So now we have a really nice sear on both sides. There's this like hand technique to know how your steak is done. Basically you take your hand and you take the fingers and this is kind of like, this is rare. You know, you can feel it's quite soft. It bounces back, but it takes time. And then this is medium rare. How America likes their steak. And then you go here, medium. And this is, this is well done. This is really like, that's a hard steak. You know, just like this. It works every time. So right now I'm touching here and I'm touching here. Yeah, right now we're rare. By the time it rests, we'll probably be medium rare. What you don't want to do is to rinse that pan. That pan is golden, has all the flavor. Shallots in. The salt kind of helps it sweat. So the idea here is to really deglaze the pan with some cognac for depth, for like taste. And the idea is to kind of flambe, which is to kind of deglaze and burn the bottom. Flambe, classically French. We use it in multiple recipes, savory, sweet. It just kind of kills the alcohol, but really releases all the flavor. I'm using induction here. So obviously I can't just like tilt it and make it burn. So I'm using a match. I'm going to add my green peppercorn. Now it's time to add some beef stock. What you're looking for in beef stock, especially when you get it at the butchers, is really this like gelatinous texture that is full of collagen, which will help you build a very structured sauce. Some creme fraiche, which is from Izigny, which is in Normandy, very dear to my heart. I go pretty heavy on the cream in this dish just because I feel like when the sauce is quite intense, kind of overpowers with the steak. And I really like the tang of creme fraiche. So what you're looking for is really to build that sauce and to fold the creme fraiche in, in this movement that is kind of like waves. You're emulsifying. So now it's time to add demi-glace, which is basically stock that has been added to roasted bones and red wine and reduced for hours and hours, kind of nearly over a day. And this gives this like very gelatinous kind of sauce that is perfect to finish any dish. The final sauce should be kind of like a glaze. How I like to measure if the sauce is ready or not, what you're looking for is a sauce that when you do that kind of like separation, it stays straight for quite a long time. Napper la cuillere, which means like glazing the spoon. While it's reducing and my oil is warming up for the last fry of the fries, I'm just gonna chop roughly a few szechuan peppercorn. This is not conventional. It's definitely not French, but I like how it numbs the tongue a bit when you're eating it. I felt like French cuisine has also so much potential to kind of be inspired and be influenced by other cultures. I think that's the beauty of being able to travel and see things is to also mix different cuisines that maybe didn't get the chance to interact with one another in the past. So yeah, just to touch our szechuan peppercorn like that, I'm gonna add some more cognac. Having a bit of fresh cognac at the end brings like so much more complexity. Steak is rested. I'm gonna put it back in the sauce. We already cooked the steak. It's ready to warm up while we fry the fries for the last batch. And my oil is ready for frying. I raised the temp to 180 for a really crispy fry. So you see, I see a lot of bubbles right now. I could go crazy and add more fries, but I think it's all about playing it safe and just going bit by bit. The fries are cooked, so it's only about color. They're golden. Just gonna go heavy on the salt. Make sure that there's salt everywhere. It's nice, coated. The fries will be crispy for four or five minutes. If I were to wait like 10 minutes because my steak is not ready, I can always cook them and then put them like for 30 seconds again in the same oil just to make sure you kind of like give them a second life. It's super important when you're doing a lot of this multitasking to not kind of freak out. Everything can work out and can be reheated. Like the sauce, if it sat for like an hour because you had other things to do, you can always add a touch of water, let it reduce again, kind of make sure it doesn't split. The fries, you can go for another fry. There's no rules. I'm just gonna need a last touch of cream. It's the Normandy girl in me. One last one. Don't watch your cholesterol if you're making this recipe. That's the beauty of cooking, you know? French food can feel like pretentious and very rigid, but it doesn't have to be. You know, you wanna put a bit more cream, you can. If you wanna put a bit less, you can also. We're good to go. Okay, now it's time to cut the steak. Let's check the cooking. That is exactly what I'm looking for. See like a nice, rare, medium rare, hot to the touch. The idea is to put a big pile of fries on the side of the plate. It's gonna soak up all the sauce. I'm gonna put a bit of sauce in the bottom. Super like luscious, silky, like something that coats the plate. Then you wanna plate and see the nice cooking, you know? You have to show off a bit. This is what I wanna eat right now and every day. This is French food, you know? Few ingredients, nice sauce. That's what it's about. Then the last pieces for me. It's so good. The pepper is strong, but like quite mild also because of the green pepper corn. The sauce is rich, very beefy. Great, try it at home. You won't regret it.