Binging with Babish: Steak au Poivre from Archer

- *sigh* What's silly, Archer? The fact that we are facing at least four highly trained North Korean agents? Or the fact that everyone has... - Peppercorns, Lana. - Well, I was going to say Tokarevs and Shpagin-41 submachine guns, but yes, let's go with peppercorns. - Thank you! Because without peppercorns it's not

steak

poivre

. It just can't be. By definition. - Archer, we're supposed to stop North Koreans from buying part of a nuclear bomb, not order every item on the room service menu. - Only the dinner menu. Hey, what's up guys? Welcome back to Binging with Babish, where this week we'll be making Steak au Poivre, which by its very definition requires peppercorns, peppercorns that we're going to crush.

Ideally, you would use a mortar and pestle, but if you're like me and can't find yours, we can use a much more laborious technique: pour them into a shallow pan and mash them with the bottom of a small saucepan or a meat mallet. In the end we want completely crushed peppercorns that we are going to pass through a fine mesh strainer. This is to get rid of all the smaller pepper particles that will burn if we apply too much heat. This is perfectly fine for other seasoning applications, but we look for these big chunks. Next, we will salt and let our fillets rest;

I choose filet mignon. We want to season both sides liberally with kosher salt and let them sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes to an hour. This will help our

steak

s retain a little more juiciness in the future. While they rest, we need to take care of the sides of the plate. I saw carrots and small peas. Pretty boring, but I want to see if we can spice them up a bit. Let's start with the carrots, which I'm going to sauté in a whole ton of butter. Like solid sticks worth it, I'm going to foam it over medium heat.

Make sure you don't heat the butter too much, which I'll explain why later. Once it's all melted and nice and bubbly, we'll add our carrots. I have a pound of baby carrots here. I'm going to start by slowly cooking them in butter for 10 to 15 minutes until they start to soften a little. It is very important not to let the fats in the milk separate the way it does. when you make browned butter because then you're going to have a watery, greasy liquid at the bottom of the pan instead of a nice cohesive sauce and now to make the carrots interesting, I'm going to add a half cup of bourbon, which I'm going to flambé Shake it a little until all the heat goes out and then maybe I'm going to use a quarter cup of orange juice to give it a little acidity and flavor and to help sweeten and thicken the sauce, I'm going to add 2 to 3 tablespoons of sugar brown and stir and slowly cook the carrots in this mixture until reduced to a sweet, syrupy glaze.

As we near the end of cooking, I'll add some freshly chopped thyme along with a few turns of freshly ground. black pepper and a few pinches of freshly made kosher salt. And as I mentioned before, I will make sure not to let the butter brown otherwise this will happen, it tastes good but what you will essentially hear is carrots swimming in clarified butter. Which, as one of my culinary heroes would say, "is not good to eat." So be sure to regulate the temperature and slowly and gently cook the carrots until they are tender, sweet and sticky, now onto the peas that we are going to parboil. 2-3 minutes or until tender and then we will immediately apply them to an ice bath.

Note that this is if you are using fresh peas. If you are using frozen peas, you can skip directly to this step after thawing them. I'm going to sauté the peas in a little butter and by a little I mean half a stick in about ten seconds. I'm going to remember that I wanted to sauté a shallot first, so I'm just going to throw that in. and I hope you don't notice and then we'll cook for another 2-3 minutes until the peas are soft and tender, at which point we'll add about 2 tablespoons of freshly bought mint and the zest of a lemon and just give them a little spice to those guys just to get those flavors known and then right at the end of cooking, of course, we're going to season them with a little bit of kosher salt and freshly ground pepper and put them away. guys warm up as we move on to cooking our steak, which as you can see is well rested and requires another pat with paper towels before popping it into a hot pan, we're just looking to make sure it's hot, we're dropping our steaks with a little of vegetable oil and letting them brown on both sides.

We've done fillets in every direction in this program, so I'm going to go over this part quickly. Suffice it to say that I seared them in a pan and then brushed them with butter to brown them. approximately four minutes per side over medium high heat and then lowering the heat adding a little butter and basting repeating until reaching the desired internal temperature of 130 degrees F. We will let them rest for ten minutes and then prepare the sauce in said pan. I wiped off all that brown butter leaving a little bit of that honey on the bottom of the pot and I'm adding about a tablespoon and a half of our crushed peppercorn, which I'm just going to toast for 20 to 30 seconds or so.

I don't want to burn the fond and then put out the fire. I'm adding about 1/3 cup of cognac, which I'm going to set on fire for little to no reason. There is no need to do this once the fire has been avoided. I will add. a ladle full or about half a cup of beef broth that I have previously reduced by half, if that makes any sense I will also add about half a cup of heavy cream and then continue simmering or whisking a little. this until it becomes a thick, lush, unctuous, luxurious sauce that easily coats the back of a spoon and since we won't skimp on the butter in this episode, it's time to add a little bit of butter, two tablespoons that we're going to beat lightly. the sauce from the heat and finally it's time to serve on the plate.

I've got my steak cut into slices that I'm going to flank with our lemon mint peas and our bourbon carrots and then I'm going to delicately sauce our steak and it's finally time to eat. The carrots are perfect. They are tender, sweet, rich and sticky. The peas are bright and grassy al dente and also perfect, and the filet au

poivre

is just one of the best things you can imagine; it's a clear and obvious starter to the... oh wait a second, I can't finish this without a little bit of Glengoolie Blue, which is not a real whiskey, but I can only assume you mean Johnnie Walker Blue Label * sigh* The things I have to do to be precise on this show, but for you, I'll bite the bullet.

And it's really tasty, no. It's worth $200 a bottle, but I have to say it goes very, very well with Steak au Poivre. Archer may be a horrible person, but the guy knows how to eat.