Steak au poivre

"Good, beefy steak, fragrant peppercorns and red wine are a most sublime combination. Don't be tempted to think that naff restaurants that serve steak au poivre swimming in a sickly cream and brandy sauce have got it right – they haven't." Delia Smith

steak au poivre 2

steak au poivre

Classic with the brandy and cream on the left, Delia with red wine on the right. I'll probably go with Delia because I haven't got any brandy! But even Delia does have a recipe for a version with brandy and cream, which makes her a slight hypocrite I guess.

So why am I writing about that very 60s dish steak au poivre? Well there was a special on fillet steak the other day so I bought a piece and then cut it into what I thought were good steak size pieces for freezing. And today I thought I would indulge. But I saw when I took them out of the freezer that although I thought they were big enough the other day, they aren't really because I think I cut them too thin. And looking at the pictures above just confirms that. Oh well I'll just have to do my best with what I have. In my reading on the subject I have also come to the conclusion that my fillet is not the best fillet - being vacuum packed so that half of the blood has come out already - thus losing some flavour. Gruesome I know, but then I guess eating meat is.

When I was young we never ever had steak. Much too expensive. It was rich man's food. I first encountered it in France, and even there it was most usually horse meat I think. But I did like it, and because I first encountered it in France I learnt to eat it rare. They don't really do well-done over there. Not when it comes to steak anyway. And they don't have as many horse meat butchers nowadays either.

I have tried to cook steak every now and then but not with any great success. Most likely because I have been using cheaper cuts like rump which is tasty but tough when cooked quickly. Anyway I'm going to give it another go tonight.

So I researched a bit and found that there is a bit of a controversy on just about every aspect of what is a really simple and classic dish. Incidentally it doesn't seem to be that old. My gut instinct was that it was a classic restaurant dish and this does seem to be the case. They can't pin it down to any particular chef but mostly they seem to think early 20th century - although one writer found a medieval recipe for venison with a pepper crust, so who knows.

The main controversy seems to be over whether the sauce has flamed brandy and cream in it or not. Some have wine, some don't flame the brandy and some like Donna Hay (picture at left) have other things like whisky!

I guess the other controversy is the peppercorns. Which kind and how many and how do you crush them? The gourmets insist on doing it in a pestle and mortar. Well I have tried this, and I know mine is small but nevertheless they just jump all over the place. Delia suggests crushing with the back of a spoon - also leading to peppercorns bouncing all around the kitchen - even she admits it. So nowadays I wrap them very loosely in a double layer of greaseproof paper, so that they are completely enclosed and then bash them with a rolling pin. It works and is very satisfying. You can get rid of a lot of pent up annoyance and irritation this way. I also saw a suggestion of then putting them through a sieve and keeping the powder for another day. The powderier it is the more bitter it will be apparently.

Green, white, pink, green? I might use a mixture of green and black I think. White are the hottest, and green pretty gentle with a different taste. Very popular in the 60s. And the amount seems to be anything from 2 teaspoons per steak down to 1/2 teaspoon (Elizabeth David) who says:

"French restaurant cooks tend to overdo the pepper on steak au poivre to the point where their victims choke on the very first mouthful."

Incidentally her recipe appears in Spices, Salt and Aromatics in the English Kitchen, which rather confirms my feeling that this is not a traditional French dish, but rather a restaurant invention. And in spite of the fact that it appears in Mastering the Art of French Cooking the gurus who wrote it say nevertheless:

"Steak au poivre can be very good when it is not so buried in pepper and doused with flaming brandy that the flavour of the meat is utterly disguised. In fact, we do not care at all for flaming brandy with this dish; it is too reminiscent of restaurant show-off cooking. And the alcohol taste, as it is not boiled off completely, remains in the brandy, spoiling the taste of the meat."

There are lots of variations out there. Different meats (or fish), different peppercorns different sauces, different methods - Delia has a braised version which I have tried. And she has a few other suggestions too. Nigel Slater has a version for chicken wings that sounds yummy,

Now what am I going to serve with it? Donna Hay's potatoes look tempting.