Bread and Wine: Steak au Poivre with Cognac Pan Sauce

Just thinking about this recipe makes my mouth start to water a little bit.

I grew up hating steak. My poor parents didn't really know how to grill, to cook until my brother and I were in middle school, so unfortunately I have a lot of memories of very chewy, very rare steak that was very underseasoned. Whew.

Fast forward a few years and Mom picks up ideas about Worcestershire sauce, garlic salt, and lots of salt and pepper. And oil. That was when I started to like steak.

The first time I made this particular recipe, I guess it was this spring, my husband and I both rejoiced.

I've gotten a pretty mean roast down; and thanks to The Pioneer Woman, I can make some mean pulled pork and roasted chicken. But steak has eluded me (with all my mother's hints and tips she's learned). But this recipe, made with browning the steak in a skillet, seems to fit my hand a bit better.

Granted, it's still a little awkward, I think the idea of pricey meat at my mercy terrifies me some. Nothing like wielding a $15 Ribeye only to have it come out like a burnt bread crust (which I have done before). But I practice, and this recipe comes out a little better every time.

And that's what this chapter is really all about: practice.

Let's tuck in.

Steak au Poivre
In this particular chapter, "The Chopping Block," Niequist talks about learning this recipe while at a cooking boot camp, The Chopping Block, learning essential kitchen techniques from egg cracking to butchering meat, to mastering the foundational recipes of French cuisine. She talks about the failures and the grand successes. She talks about the magic of "more heat, more salt, more butter" in every savory recipe.

Steak au Poivre is a foundational French recipe: steak crusted in pepper and pan seared in butter (did I mention what a low-fat recipe this is? yukyukyuk). The Cognac sauce is made with shallots, softened in the same pan, and cooked with cognac, cream and chicken broth. Oh yes, and Dijon.

The answer is YES, it is very high fat. And YES, it is very peppery, but in a morning coffee kind of way. Your tongue kind of gets shaken awake and reminded that there is so much more flavor to things than you might have once believed.

In short, it's delicious. I served it with mashed Yukon Gold potatoes and roasted broccoli. A little sauce dribbled over everything. Okay, you might have found me dipping the broccoli in the sauce pan before crunching it down. But guys, this sauce is like, better than ketchup (mic drop).

Edited note: the author reread her post to find the idiotic spelling of "mic" as "mike" for the phrase "mic drop." The author wishes to clarify that no Mikes were in fact dropped in the dropping of this phrase, and deeply regrets her attempts to sling lingo that's too hip for her. 

(A quick aside: Let me just say I made this recipe on a Monday night. On a day the kids slept weird and my kitchen is a wreck. My daughter does not like steak. My son really doesn't care for much beyond peanut butter and rice crackers (he has a wheat and dairy allergy). My husband has been on craaaaaay-cray work shifts for two weeks. It was reeeeallly not a great time to make a further-kitchen cluttering recipe what with all the hot pans and measuring cups and cutting boards and all that cutlery. Fancy cooking does not suit my lifestyle with two toddlers and a busy husband and my tired self right now. But I made it for two reasons. One, because I committed to this blog and so, well, I did it. Two, because sometimes the juxta positioning of a French recipe in my very messy American family kitchen is just the shake up I need. To affirm to my family (if only my husband) that we are as important and fancy (metaphorically) as a high-end recipe. Our Monday night is as a beautiful as a French café. God loves us MORE than $30 of steak and $25 of unusual groceries. We are so much more than chicken tenders and peanut butter and crackers (even if that's what my children ate). It's a fairy tale, a metaphor that I got to cook and chop and stir and simmer my way through on a busy, messy Monday night. I still haven't done the dishes yet, but I felt the truth in the doing was still important. Now, haha, if anyone wants to come over and help with some dishes this week...)

The Chapter
Niequist talks about this recipe, and her experience learning it, as her own kind of metaphor-- one for living, where we learn, not merely by reading, by having our heads in books, but in really doing. Like gardening or raising children, cooking connects us with this fundamental truth of life itself

"The Chopping Block chefs were lovely and smart and answered all of our questions. But the most important thing they did was stand next to us as we logged the all-important hours--another onion to chop, another steak to grill, another herb to mince."

More significant than the knowledge shared and the techniques taught, Niequist says, is the experience--the actual doing, the hand to the knife, This, THIS, is where learning truly begins.

"Almost everything I know in the world I learned from novels and memoirs and stories," she says. "But then you find yourself standing at a bar or kneeling in the dirt or holding a very sharp chef's knife and you realize all at once that it doesn't matter what you've read or seen or think you know. You learn it, really learn it with your hands. With your fingers and your knife, you nose and your ears your tongue and your muscle memory, learning as you go."

I reread these words on a particular morning when it was very hard to think of getting up and writing, when I was on the verge of sloughing off my writing until later when I "had time" (laugh with me). I read this and hoisted my butt in front of my computer. Because this truth--the learning in the doing--is one we all too often forget in our 'everything is on my phone" age. We forget heat, salt and butter. We forget sweat and ick and hard work  when there is much smooth glossy all too-available for us.

Just as Niequist found she needed the hours in the kitchen to learn, so I need to log the all-important hours in writing. I need the hard work, the grunt, the fail, to improve and move forward. As I do with anything. As any of us do.

And if getting us in the kitchen reminds us of the importance of the doing, the experience, then that's reason enough to start cooking.

Plus, it's really, really delicious.