9 Steps to Steak au Poivre

Ready for a restaurant-quality steak? 

The steak is one of the most commonly eaten items around the world. You can enjoy it from a spit to a stove. From rare to well-done, it's a carnivore thing. 

But to have a truly delicious steak, like the ones you have in restaurants, effective cooking techniques have to be executed. 

Here are the ingredients I used to make a Steak-au-Poivre recipe I learned: salt, pepper/corns, vegetable oil, butter, heavy cream, shallot, chive, Cognac, and on-the-bone strip steak. 

Heres how to make it:

1. Prepare: as per jolly usual, take out a cutting board, pan, baking sheet, spatula, fork and sharp knife. Go ahead and preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

2. With a paper towel, pat the steak until it is dry. Then, thrown the salt and crushed peppercorn onto the steak and evenly rub it in (#Begenerous, it tastes better).

3. Drizzle some vegetable oil into a skillet and once it's steaming, place your steaks in, front first. Add butter! With the liquid that arises, tilt the pan towards you so the steak and liquid is nearest you. With a spoon, scoop up the sizzling juices and dump it atop the steak. The crackling sizzle is key. Three to five minutes on each side and it's ready. Literally, only flip it once. 

4. Place the steak(s) onto a #PAMmed up baking sheet and into the oven. 

5. Next, collect the remaining juices from the pan into any adequate receptacle. 

6. Place the pan back on the heat and put 1 finely chopped shallot and 2 tbsp. of butter. Turn the heat to medium, and continually stir the mixture until the shallots turn a golden-brown (#5minutes). Pour in 1/2 cup of Cognac (keep some distance, it's a #firehazard). Mix it together for about 3 minutes.

7. Pour in 3/4 of heavy cream and the juices you collected from earlier. Continue to mix for about five minutes until the the mixture is reduced by half. Add in another 2 tbsp. of butter and let that melt in as you persistently stir. 

8. With mittens, take your steak(s) out of the oven and place them into the sauce for thirty seconds or so. 

9. Plate your steaks and pour on the sauce! Add in chopped chives to add a little restaurant shine and great flavor. 

And that's it. Grab a steak knife and enjoy!

Did these sprouts come from Brussels?

It’s taken me some time to jump back on the cooking train- senior year of college is hectic. Plus, when your kitchen doesn’t have a dishwasher, it sure is hard to cook knowing you have cleaning ahead of you. So, as a suggestion, if you’re interested in cooking often, have a dishwasher in your home. I might be the only home this side of the Mississippi without one.

Anyway, the meal we’ll be exploring tonight is a mixture of a suggestion from a friend, and, conventional college eating. It delves into what vegetarians consider normal: filling, tasty, and healthy meals that do not involve meat. I have to involve meat though; I’m cooking for 4 of my friends who aren’t satisfied without protein.

The long overdue meal suggested by a friend was a concoction of Brussel sprouts. It is to be doused in an Asian sauce that tingles the palate’s senses. I learned how to make it righttt… here.

The ingredients to be used in making the Brussel sprouts are: salt, pepper, sugar, water, vegetable oil, fish sauce, garlic, shallot, lime, chili pepper, and, of course, Brussel sprout.

Prepare your kitchen area with a cutting board and knives, and, a garbage of sorts to keep organized (there will be many scraps). Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Crush and chop 2 cloves of garlic. Slice about 1 ½ chili pepper (depending on how much heat you want) evenly. Then throw that and about 1 tbsp. of sugar into a mortar. If you don’t have a mortar, no big deal, just use a bowl and the back of a sturdy spoon. Crush that together until it looks like you’ve done something right. Combine that mixture with ½ cup of water; add the juice of about half a lime and a tbsp. of fish sauce. Place it in the fridge to gather flavor.

Grab about 1 ½ pound of your sprouts and begin to cut the butts off of them, and then slice them once through the middle. Also, chop up 2 shallots. When you’re finished doing that, throw them into a pan and add salt, pepper and oil. Toss it around and that’s it. Throw it in the oven for about 1 hour, and, occasionally drizzle a few drops oil water into the pan to make sure nothing gets burnt.

In the meantime, you can get started on the protein of the meal. I’ve decided to make a guaranteed dish of chicken and bacon. It’s as simple as simple gets, but, it always keeps eaters happy. However, I added some of the same ingredients into this part of the dish so that there was similarity- not just two contrasting flavors.

To make this part of the meal, I used: salt, pepper, vegetable oil, fish sauce, lime juice, chicken breast and bacon.

Heat up a pan and pour a healthy amount of oil in. Then throw in your chicken. Quickly season the chicken with salt and pepper, if you have not already, so that the flavor blends in. Next: bacon. Fit in as much as you can and make sure to add pepper again. Let the meats cook together and, whenever you’re ready, add in small amounts of fish sauce and lime juice. Gently score the chicken so that it cooks evenly. I cut but meats into small, bite size pieces so that there was consistency in size between the meats and Brussel sprouts.

Hopefully, when you’ve finished cooking the meat, the sprouts will just be finishing in the oven as well. Make sure that the Brussel sprouts are not hard as soon as you take them out of the oven. If they are, throw them back in- your diners can wait.

Pour the sauce that’s been chilling in your fridge atop the sprouts and serve it as soon as possible.

Plate the two parts of your meal onto plates and see your diners enjoy a wonderfully delicious collection of flavors from smoky to zingy. Goodnight!

A simple delicacy

I had gone to an Italian restaurant in Queens a few weeks ago with my family. My eldest brother and I shared a monstrous 62-ounce steak with sides of polenta and creamed spinach. It was a classic dish that I thoroughly enjoyed, but there was something else that caught my attention: a dish across the table. My other brother was twirling fettuccini around his fork and it looked incredibly appetizing. It was a dish called fettuccine with peas and prosciutto, a common staple of Italian cuisine, or so I’ve read. Staring over at this creamy, gooey, meaty and aesthetically pleasing dish, I knew I had to make it myself.

After doing some research, I understood that it was a rather easy dish to make, but if done right, could be one of the most pleasant and comforting meals. I found about 5 different recipes of how to make it and confounded my own general ingredients list.
 

The list of ingredients I used is: garlic, frozen green peas, shallot, lemon, basil, butter, parmesan cheese, heavy cream, tomato paste, olive oil, salt, pepper, fettuccine, and prosciutto. 

This was the first time I would ever use tomato paste, heavy cream, or shallots in a dish, and so I was quite excited to try it out. 

Wondering what a shallot is and what it’s used for? I was too. A shallot is similar to an onion but is a bit sweeter. A tad different, however, is that when cooked, a shallot tends to dissolve into the dish, whereas an onion will keep its solid form. So, you’d use a shallot when you don’t want any extra texture in your meal but do want the flavor of an onion.

Now, to get into cooking, start out by preparing. Chop up 1 shallot, 2 garlic cloves, 1 lemon, and about 8 slices of prosciutto.

Before anything else, take out a pot, fill it with salted water and wait for it to boil, and then put in your fettuccine. Since it takes about 10 minutes to cook the pasta, the two components of your dish should be completed at the same time.

Heat up a pan with adequate butter and olive oil, and then throw in your garlic. Not too long after, add in the chopped shallot. When the shallot begins to thin out, add in frozen peas (amount is your decision). Frozen peas take about 4 minutes to cook. About 30 seconds after you’ve added your peas, put in the prosciutto. When you’re done cooking, you want the prosciutto to be tender and juicy, not crispy and overcooked. Next, simultaneously put in ¾ cup of heavy cream and 2 tbsp. of tomato paste. Make sure to mix it all around, and drizzle some lemon juice for a nice punch of flavor. Finally, drop in some parmesan cheese to combine the liquids and bring together all of the flavors. You should have a nice thick sauce with well-prepared peas and prosciutto.

Pour your drained fettuccine onto the sauce to combine the two components, mix it around, throw in some salt and pepper, and you’re done.

What you should have plated is a deliciously creamy dish packed with salty prosciutto and delicate green peas. Rip up some basil and throw it atop, too.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Goodnight.