How to Master French Steak Frites At Home

Steak au poivre vert is probably the dish that you see

in every single bistro in Paris.

It's the dish that is extremely dear to my heart.

I love it.

I'm going to wash the potatoes

and then cut 'em 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 credits.

We have the potatoes.

We're in America, we got the russets.

What we'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 they'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.

[water sloshing] [bowl thuds]

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 wanna be quite precise in terms of thickness.

I'm looking for something,

let see, like a bit smaller than the thumb.

Batonnet is what we call them.

Batonnet means literally like a stick.

If you start having different sizes,

you're gonna get something that's very uneven

and some fries are gonna be way overcooked

and some are gonna be still a bit raw in the center.

I'm just gonna fill this bowl with water.

[water sloshing]

[bowl thuds] 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 salted water

and then finishing them twice in the 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.

[water sloshing]

Once the water is completely clear.

But like rice, you're good to go.

[bowl thuds]

So I have hot water. We're gonna 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 gonna overcook

just because they're on top of one another

and that they go straight in the fridge.

[tray thudding]

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 the first of all,

texture, taste, and overall,

just this nice like umami balance.

There are many different ways to like dice the shallots.

I like this very old school way.

You kind of like have this layer that's quite thin.

We're gonna smash it.

[knife thudding]

And this allows you to have a perfect like julienne.

Julienne is basically a very thin strip of vegetable

that you cut

or a bunch of different classic cutting techniques.

Brunoise is the small cube.

Julienne is a long strip.

And then we have paysanne, 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.

[knife rustling]

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 gonna come from the black peppercorn

that is gonna 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 would say like animale, which means like animal.

It has very like beasty, kind of like gamey kind of smell.

It's delicious with steak.

What you wanna do is start like crushing them.

You wanna 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 like 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 us very like 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 used to do steak au poivre.

The filet for me is a bit boring because yes, it's tender.

So the sauce kind of takes 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 gonna 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.

[fries sizzling]

It's gonna roughly take five minutes.

And then for the last fry, it's gonna be a bit shorter,

probably three, three and a half.

The first fry is to create a protective layer

that is not gonna 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 try one.

So I'm gonna 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.

And 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 gonna 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.

The pan on the side for a sec, choo, choo, choo,

we're gonna 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.

[steak sizzling]

I am gonna put some weights. Weights are great.

You can either have like dedicated like meat weights

or just like put another pan on top.

[meat weights clanking]

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.

[steak sizzling]

You really wanna hear the pan sizzle

and kind of like toast the peppercorn.

[steak sizzling]

Nice.

Like the black peppercorn,

sometimes depending on like the varietal,

when it gets toasty, it smells like, I don't know,

like a cow feel or something, in a good way.

Yeah, we have a really nice crust right now.

We're gonna flip it. Beautiful.

That's exactly what you want.

[steak sizzling]

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 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 wanna do is to rinse that pan.

That pan is golden, has all the flavor.

Shallots in. The salt, kind of helps it sweat.

[shallots sizzling]

So the idea here is 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.

Flambe, classically French, we use it in multiple recipes.

Savory, sweet, it just kind of kills the alcohol

but really releases all the flavor.

[shallots sizzling]

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 Isigny,

which is en 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.

[pan scraping]

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 a 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.

Nappe 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 Sichuan 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, you know, be inspired

and be influenced by other cultures.

I think that's the beauty of, you know, 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 a Sichuan peppercorn like that, dump.

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 they're 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.

[water sloshing]

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.

And 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.

[pan scraping]

Super like luscious, silky,

like something that coats the plate and beef, beef.

And then you wanna plate it and see,

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 piece is for me.

It's so good.

The pepper is strong, but like quite mild also

because of the green peppercorn.

The sauce is rich, very beefy. Great, try it at home.

You won't regret it.

[bright music]