freshly ground black pepper and a little
squeeze of lemon juice to taste. Lift the hocks from their
stock and carve the meat from them, arranging it on top
of the lentils and dressing the dish with the sauce.
Boiled potatoes may also be served.
WINE: The brasserie staple, when speaking of red wine,
is a racy and fruity Beaujolais. In truth, this dish will not
struggle with any red.
32
A Good GCSE
Steak au Poivre
Albert Roux once maintained that if he wanted to assess
the ability of a young chef he would ask them to fry an
egg. The care with which they would break the shell, the
patience and low temperature they needed to cook the
white so that it did not toughen, the manner in which
they would gently baste the yolk and thus end up with a
perfectly cooked example would tell him all he needed to
know. If a fried egg was the eleven-plus of cookery I think
a peppered steak might be a good GCSE or even ‘A’ level.
There are a number of trucs – a French expression, best
translated as something between a trick and a technique
– involved in the operation. Firstly, assuming you have
bought well and have two beautiful chunks of fillet, the
meat should be brought to room temperature well in
advance of cooking. If the centre of the meat is at ambient
temperature, this will drastically shorten the cooking time
and the rest period. Secondly, the peppercorns must be
broken but no more: a crafty cook will then sieve the
ground corns and use what is left, retaining the finely
ground pepper for some other use. If finely ground pepper
is used on the steak it will burn and make it bitter.
The cook must colour the meat well on all sides, in a
mixture of oil and butter, and salt the meat before cooking
(frowned upon by some, but essential for flavour in my
book), and cook it until the centre of the steak it reaches
just over blood heat, then let it rest in a warm place while
they make the sauce. If the cooking of the meat will test
technical ability, the sauce will test the sense of taste. It
must be unctuous without being cloying and will need
just a hint of acidity and bite to do the steak justice.
I am assuming that you will want your steak rare. It is,
dare I say it, comme il faut, although I am always happy
to be guided by the customer in this regard. If he or she
wants their steak well done, that is their prerogative. I have
to say I was much heartened when we cooked beef
Wellington for a seventieth birthday party of a hundred
and two people. The beef was cooked to a beautiful rosy
rare and we sent it out, anticipating a few requests for
some to be more cooked. It is a measure of how far we have
come gastronomically – or perhaps how orthodoxy has
taken hold – that we received no such request and every
plate came back clean.
33
January
STEAK AU POIVRE
Always best as a dinner for two in my book: considering the
expense, this is perhaps wise. Some people prefer using
white peppercorns; it is a matter of taste.
Serves two.
2 fillet steaks, weighing at
least 225g (8oz)
2 tablespoons black
peppercorns
40g (1½oz) unsalted butter
2–3 tablespoons oil
30ml (1fl oz) brandy
50ml (13⁄4fl oz) white wine
100ml (3½fl oz) stock (beef
or chicken, quite strong)
50ml (13⁄4fl oz) double cream
a squeeze of lemon juice
salt
Bring the meat to room temperature for about an hour.
Pound the peppercorns in a mortar with the pestle until
they are all broken – no more – then sieve out the dust,
saving this for another purpose. The peppercorns can be
ground in a blender or spice grinder, but great care needs
to be taken to ensure that they are merely broken so that
they do not burn.
Spread out the pepper on a plate. Press the fillets into
the peppercorns, pushing down so that the pepper adheres
to one side of the steak, and season the same side with salt.
Melt half of the butter in the oil in a small frying pan. Once
the butter is foaming, place the steaks, pepper-side down,
in
