hello this is chef john from food wishes
comm with bourbon pepper pan sauce
that's right at least once or twice a
year I'd like to do a video that
features a pan sauce since for me it's
one of the most important techniques for
a home cook to master and by adding this
very easy to learn skill to your
repertoire you'll be producing things
that most mere mortals only can get in a
restaurant so with apologies to
professional saucier severy where let's
go ahead and get started
and I'm going to begin by generously
seasoning this New York Strip and that's
going to be in coating the surface with
a generous application of kosher salt as
well as a very very very heavy
application of freshly ground black
pepper
all right extra credit if it's a little
bit coarsely ground and of course we're
going to do that to both sides and we'll
also use the excess on the plate to get
the edges and we really do want to be
generous here especially with the black
pepper all right believe it or not using
this method we're not actually gonna add
any black pepper to the sauce it's all
gonna come from the surface of the steak
or at least that's the plan and by the
way the whole idea of a pan sauce is to
obviously make it after you cook
something in a pan but something I will
go over in the blog post is that if
you're gonna grill your steaks or cook
them in some other non pan method I'm
gonna let you know how you can make this
sauce anyway so don't worry if you want
to use this after grilling there is a
way and what we'll do once our steak has
been seasoned is simply set that aside
while we move on to the rest of our mise
in plos which is simply a French
culinary term for getting all your
ingredients together besides some veal
or chicken stock and some heavy cream
we're gonna need about 1 ounce of
bourbon and no you don't have to use the
really nice stuff except I don't drink
anything that's not nice so I was forced
to use something a little higher end and
then we'll also need a little touch of
cold butter as well as some minced
garlic and that is pretty much gonna be
it for this very very simple sauce and
the reason we get this all together
before we start is because we want to be
able to make our sauce in the five or
six minutes it takes for our steak to
rest and if we try to run and grab all
their stuff once our steak is done it's
gonna take too long but once we do have
all that set we can head to the stove
where I'm gonna cook my steak over
medium-high heat and a little bit of
duck fat just cuz I had some left over
but you use clarified butter or any
other
and if that if you want oh and let me
give you a little New York Strip buying
advice never buy one that has a membrane
going through it like this one all right
that is the last strip that they cut
from a loin and in my opinion the least
desirable so I was not paying attention
but you should be but anyway I ended up
cooking this for about five minutes per
side shooting for something hopefully
close to medium-rare
and besides giving it about five minutes
per side I also like to sear the edges a
little bit for mostly aesthetic reasons
but more browning usually equals more
flavor and if you're wondering about
that dark spot forming at the bottom of
the pan that's what we call the Fond Fon
D and all that is our meat drippings and
juices caramelizing onto the metal along
with of course a good amount of black
pepper and as you'll see once we remove
the steak that's going to form the
foundation of our pan sauce okay so for
step one we're gonna cook a steak to our
liking in a steel pan
hopefully forming any fabulous fond in
the process and what we'll do is remove
that steak to a plate to rest and turn
off the heat repeat turn off the heat
there is more than enough heat still
left in that pan to do the next step
which is going to be to quickly saute
some garlic which I'm going to toss in
and sort of press with the back of my
spoon just to sort of bruise it up a
little bit and bring out a little more
flavor and I know the pans dry but
that's fine we'll just give that a quick
working over with our spoon before
adding a little chunk of our butter and
again the heat is off and as you can see
that pan is still really hot which is
why we're only gonna let this garlic
sizzle for a few seconds at which point
with the heat still off we can go ahead
and add our bourbon which is quickly
gonna vaporize and form a very flammable
cloud which if your flame was still on
could explode into a fireball but after
just a second or two all the alcohol
should evaporate in fact I tried to
ignite some just after a couple seconds
and I got nothing
no alcohol vapor left and besides not
burning your eyebrows off the other
reason you want the heat off here is
because of how fast that bourbon reduces
I mean in the time it took me to change
the camera angle it had already reduced
down to a sticky glaze and had we had
the heat on that could have burned but
assuming it did let's go ahead and add
our chicken broth or even better veal
stock if you have it and then once
that's in we can go ahead and put our
heat back on to high and as we stir this
that liquid comes up to a boil it's
going to dissolve all that beautiful
peppery goodness off the bottom and what
once was something that most people
would scrub off with a sponge when they
were doing the dishes we've just easily
reclaimed to help create an incredibly
flavorful sauce okay so we'll go ahead
and declare that pan with our chicken
broth until the bottom of our pan is
nice and clean which is only gonna take
a couple minutes and by the time this
step is done don't be surprised if your
stocks reduced a little bit maybe by as
much as half which is exactly what we
want and then what we'll do at this
point is go ahead and stir in our heavy
cream and basically other than final
seasoning this sauce is done when it's
reduced to the exact thickness you want
and by the way you probably want to stay
pretty close to this and keep an eye on
it all right start to finish this sauce
took me exactly six minutes to make and
I know they say a watched pot never
boils
but trust me this one will and if you're
not around it will boil and then burn
and while I will give this a taste for
final seasoning later I knew I was going
to need a little pinch of salt as well
as a little shake of cayenne so I toss
those in while I was waiting for this to
reduce oh and I should mention this
recipes gonna make enough sauce for two
steaks I'm only cooking one because I'm
home alone but just something to keep in
mind and I'm not gonna tell you exactly
how far you should go but when we were
talking about rich decadent sauces like
this you don't want to go too thick so
right here I was getting very close but
I did want it a touch thicker so I let
that boil for another 1/2 minute or so
and then once we've decided that's
reduced long enough we'll go ahead and
toss in the rest of our cold butter and
immediately turn off the heat and with
the heat off we'll keep that butter
moving until it disappears and once that
happens other than giving it one last
taste for seasoning our bourbon pepper
pan sauce is officially done which means
we can go ahead and plate up with our
steak and please be a professional and
use a warm plate and of course if you
feel like decorating this with something
go ahead I mean you are after all the
Bob Ross of your pan sauce so if you
wanted to scatter over some happy little
herbs feel free but I decided to serve
mine as is and its purest form and there
really is no rule that a pan sauce has
to be a gorgeous color but I think it
helps and this one certainly qualifies
but anyway I grabbed a fork a knife and
and for taste and for me what makes it
such a great steak sauce there's not
just the richness from the butter and
cream but that play between the
sweetness of the bourbon and the
spiciness from our black pepper just
work so so perfectly in this so I really
do love how this sauce comes out and
like I mentioned earlier if you're not
cooking your steaks in the pan and
you're gonna do them on the grill
you could just start this recipe dry
from the point where we cook our garlic
and butter and just continue on from
there and then simply keep the sauce
warm until your steaks are ready and
even though you might have to add a
spoon of freshly ground black pepper to
the sauce that will still work and you
could be enjoying pretty much the same
sauce we're experienced in here and know
my steak knife has not that dull this
grass-fed beef was not super tender hey
but at least I had that membrane in it
but anyway the sauce was so amazing and
flavorful I didn't even care about that
oh and one last thing if you're not into
beef this sauce would be absolutely
fantastic on things like grilled pork
chops or grilled chicken but no matter
what you use this honor under I really
do hope you give this a try soon so head
over to food wishes comm for all the
ingredient amounts of more info as usual
and as always enjoy
you
