How One of NYC’s Best Chefs Makes The Perfect Steak (Michelin Star) | Made to Order | Bon Appétit

Bon Appétit joins Michelin-starred chef Daniel Boulud in his kitchen at Restaurant Daniel in NYC to prepare a French classic: Steak Au Poivre. One of New York’s best chefs, Boulud rarely gets to showcase his take on home cooking in his restaurants, but today he’s teaching a masterclass on his perfect version of a relaxed Sunday lunch.

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00:00 Intro
00:32 Preparing the Steak
02:09 Cooking Steak
05:18 Prepping the Potatoes
08:33 Making Au Poivre Sauce
12:01 Plating

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[relaxing music] – Hi, I am Daniel Boulud
from Restaurant Daniel in New York City, and I’m making my
favorite steak au poivre. Restaurant Daniel has always
been the restaurant I dream of. We’re gonna to be making today
a cote de boeuf au poivre. Au poivre mean with pepper. And we do a steak au poivre sauce, where we have shallots and herbs, butter and flambe with cognac. So, here, we are starting. Cote de boeuf mean bone
in double steak rib eye. So, this is a 34-ounce steak. The good thing with the bone is, is gonna help keep part of the
steak a little bit more rare. And anything you cook on
the bone is always better. We put a string to hold
the meat tight together. Sometime with the cap, you
could lose the cap here. So, what define a good steak is often the blend of fat and lean. It’s okay if you have
nugget of fat in the middle, that’s gonna nourish the
meat while it’s cooking, and you can always remove
it when you serve it. The first thing you have to do when you cook a thick steak like this is to let it temper a little bit. So, you leave it outside
maybe for 20 minute. Now if you like your steak very
rare, then don’t temper it, but you don’t want to eat it cold either. So that’s why you want to
be able to cook it rare and have it warm inside. So, the first thing we
do is the seasoning. You salt the outside. This is sea salt. We’re using a pepper blend that is made of six pepper inside. And the six pepper are
from different continent. There is some green, there is some black. Sometime, we have some pink pepper. You can use totally only black pepper. I like the fact that many
peppers have different fragrance. You can also preseason your
steak, but not too long ahead. I mean, in a restaurant, you
cannot preseason the steak. You get the order, you season the steak, you cook it, and it’s all fine. So, you know, there’s so
many theory about steak. What I’m gonna do is my theory, so good luck. I wanted to cook my
cote de boeuf in my pan, the Daniel Boulud kitchen pan. But if you have a cast iron pan, if you have a copper pan at home, as long as you can
maintain a consistent heat. I have a little bit of a beef fat that is rendered from the
trimming of the cote de boeuf. The beef fat has been cooked and also cook with a little
bit of garlic, thyme. So I use a little bit
of beef fat in the pan and a little bit of clarified butter. The beef fat can take higher temperature and it is good to cook in its own fat. But it don’t matter if it’s a pork chop, if it’s a beef chop,
or if it’s a veal chop, you should always keep the
trimming and cook with it. I would say medium, medium high. As long as you see the
fat bubbling and rippling and making music, that’s a good sign. There’s gonna be a little bit of smoke, but you don’t want too much. You lower, you raise, you make sure that you
don’t burn your steak, but you sear it well. When you cook a steak,
when you use a fork, you don’t go in the middle
and poke your steak, you always go on the side
in a part of the steak that is not the prime meat,
but right there for example. And you can turn it like this. And I’m from Leon, I love garlic, so I like to put some
garlic inside my steak too. So this is only gonna
flavor the fat sometime. This is just to flavor, and
if you feel that it’s burning, you take it out. We’re gonna give many sear
from one side to the other. I’m trying to do a constant turning. I won’t cook it for five
minutes on one side, five minutes on the other. I’d rather go gradually, gently inside. Even out the temperature
and make sure that both side of the steak have the same
gradual cooking inside. And you don’t want to create a crust that is too well done on the outside and it’s too uneven between
one side and the other. You want the perfect steak. And also, you know, cooking
a cote de boeuf at home, if you put too much heat,
it’ll be very smoky. So, you really have to
be gentle with the steak and be patient with the steak. And that’s why the way I’m cooking here, it take patient rather than speed. You see, the music never stop. And that’s what you want, is you don’t want smoke,
you just want music. You can feel it by touching how the meat is still very rare on the inside, yeah. I think we have been doing
it now for almost 10 minutes, but that’s good. That’s how you want to do it at home. You want to be gentle, not create too much
splattering also with the fat, because that will take you
two days to clean the kitchen. We have a broiler at the steakhouse that goes up to, like,
1200 degrees or something, but no one has this
type of broiler at home. So here, I’m giving you the home version of how to cook you thick steak at home. And if there is any other
chef that do it differently and smartly, follow him too. Now steak is medium rare,
so a little rest, nicely. You want the temperature
to get gently into it. So, the outside is very hot,
the inside’s still cold, so, now, it’s gonna be warm by the time I finish my potatoes paillasson here. [relaxing music] With my steak, I like
potato, I like vegetable. Here, we’re gonna have
this pommes darphin. I think it’s perfect because
it goes well with the sauce. It’s tasty, something classic French. So, I have potato, I have
celery roots, carrots, and my favorite root vegetable,
a truffle to go with it. So, as you see, I am turning this into a
small, medium julienne, almost like matchsticks. You have to be very
careful with this tool. It’s not recommended to use
it if you never use it before. You can use a food processor,
that will do the same job. But we like it the old-fashioned way here. I have celery roots, the
root vegetable inside. You can do any kind of vegetable
as long as the vegetable will marry well with the potatoes. So, this get nicely mixed. If you don’t have truffle, it’s okay. I just wanted to show you that
during the truffle season, that’s what I like to do, to put a little bit of truffle inside. If you don’t have truffle, you can put mushroom in it. Truffle is very particular, because it’s basically a
mushroom and testosterone. You put a little bit inside
and it’ll give a lot. So, here I have a little
bit of clarified butter. I’d rather want to use clarified butter than fresh butter at the start. So, again, it’s all about keeping
the temperature very high, but you can use oil as well. And this is a simple dish and you can do it with only potatoes and maybe a little bit of onion. What I like also inside this sometime it’s a little bit of shallots. Just potatoes, it’s delicious. That’s the original, just potatoes. And after you put it in a pan, you start to really compress the top. You compress the side so it become even. And you push on the edge
to keep it all together. And the vegetable’s gonna
start to cook gently. So, of course, if you do it
just with carrots or celery, it is gonna be hard to stay together, but with the starch of the potatoes, hopefully it will stay together. And then what I like
is to put a little bit of butter like this. I’m moving lightly like this just to even out the cooking underneath and make sure that it’s coming out nicely. So you have to make sure that you keep that very much together. And the steam, while cooking, the steam will start to
cook the center and the top. You don’t want smoke, you
don’t want too much heat, but you want to make sure
that you are always listening to the potatoes frying
gently underneath there. So I don’t want to add too much fat, but in order to cook it nicely underneath, I’m putting a little bit of butter here before I flip it on this part. Are you ready? Because
there’s only one flip, huh? And if I mess up, don’t blame me, okay? Voila. You see the browning, it has been gentle. It was done with clarified
butter and fresh butter. It’s very crusty, but
it’s very moist below. And by having browned the potato perfect, already half of it is cooked. Now, I just need to cook
the other half the same way, and we’re gonna be perfect. So I’m gonna let that
finish gently here to cook. Now, we’re gonna finish the
steak and the au poivre sauce. [relaxing music] What’s important of course is to use the pan you cook the steak with, but you can remove the garlic,
the shallots, the thyme. I had a bay leaf. And basically what I want is, all the pepper that fell off the beef, what’s left in the pan. It’s a beautiful beef fat
with a little bit of butter. What’s important in the pan
is what we call the sucs, which is the juices of the beef, the element of the bottom of the pan here. That’s gonna go away
when we make the sauce. That’s gonna give wonderful flavors. I’m gonna give a quick sear to
the beef one more time here, just to warm it up. It rested. And I’m putting the juice
that was in the pan here. I’m just giving it a
quick warmup in the pan. And so, now, some butter inside. Don’t forget that in the
fat I left of the beef, there’s a lot of flavor
with the thyme, the herb, the garlic, the shallots already. But I’m adding extra shallots
to finish the sauce now. I am putting with the shallots
also a teaspoon of pepper that gonna fortify my sauce au poivre. So, teaspoon will make that much. I don’t recommend to
play with this at home, but if you don’t have cognac, you can put bourbon of course, that will be delicious. I have a French cognac here, because that’s how I
make my sauce au poivre. So you don’t want the shallots
to burn, but to color. And of course, if you want
to make your steak happy, you just give him a little
bit of cognac flavor on it before you finish the sauce like this. Voila. And what I like is when we do a flambe, voila, is to also give some
flambe to the steak as well. We want to burn the alcohol, but we want to keep the
flavor of the cognac. By nature of the cognac, the
alcohol will burn for sure. So, I am putting a little
bit of beef stock here, which is a sauce we have as a
base here at the restaurant. If you don’t have beef stock
at home to make you sauce, if you have your trimming
in the pan and all that, it’ll be delicious as well. You can find also demi-glace, which is made with mostly beef in a freezer of a grocery store. you can find that. So, I’m reducing that very well, almost to a what we call glace de viande. Not demi-glace, but glace de viande, which is basically a beef
stock reduced to the max. And then I put cream inside. I like my steak au poivre a little creamy. You can have it without cream if you like. So, I wouldn’t cook it
any longer than that. And then what I like to do that is absolutely not conventional, but I don’t care, is to put a little bit of mustard inside. So, that’s the little je ne sais quoi that give a little more extra kicks. And so, if you want your
sauce to be a little cleaner, you can strain it as well. And if you feel then the
sauce is a little too shiny and maybe you overcook it a little bit, then the simple thing is to add
a little bit of water in it. That’s just nothing
wrong cooking with water. Very good. It has a nice, roasted
flavor, it’s peppery. That mustard give a little
bit sort of condiment to it. The shallots, the cognac,
all that composed together, make it for rich and spicy and creamy and delicious sauce for the cote de boeuf. So, there’s different way
to cut the cote de boeuf. In the steak, there is the bone, there is the things around the bone that you want to keep, it’s delicious. Because he was well trimmed and perfect. And then you have the eyes here and then you have the rib eye cap. What I like is that everybody
can have a little bit of the eyes and the rib eye cap. So, first, I will cut the bone, I will leave a little
bit of meat on the bone, because there’s always someone
that love to eat the bone. So, I like to detach the eye
and keep the rib eye cap. I like the meat rare in the
middle, medium rare around, and well sear on the outside, but not well done on the
outside, just well sear. What’s important is that you
want that crust to be thin. And that’s why we gently
roasted on both side to really get that beautiful gentle crust. So, we cut that all the way down. If you don’t want to cut it, then you can serve yourself a big slab. It’s okay too. And then the rib eye cap, I like to make sure I cut it
in a way that you can enjoy, because it’s a little bit
more fatty on the outside. And so, you can enjoy the
whole roasted side of it. And it’s a delicacy, that part as well. It has a different texture
than the heart of the steak. Voila. With my steak, I like to have watercress. Why watercress? Because watercress is peppery, watercress is spicy, and it goes perfect
with a steak like that. And of course, the sauce here. And to finish, I have my
flavored beef fat here that I’m gonna drizzle a
little bit over the steak. So, this step here is just to bring back a little bit of a beefy,
flavorful fat on it and to shine a little
bit the steak with that. And then we finish with the fleur de sel. Tiny little snowflakes on top of salt. Voila. Cote de boeuf au poivre,
paillasson de racine, sauce au poivre, bone in
rib eye steak au poivre with a root truffle potato pie That is my Sunday’s lunch at home. Well, it’s not every day that
we do home cooking at Daniel, but my home is right
above the kitchen here. You know, the French, we love our sauce. The sauce can be 50% of the steak. That’s how I like it. Mm. The meat and the sauce together
is perfect, tender, tasty. And as you see the crust here on the sear, that’s where also extra flavor is. The sign of a good steak is
when there is a good crust. Peppery, delicious. So French. When I taste this, it
bring me back to my youth. And it’s like when I had my
first steak au poivre in France. That’s the beauty of food,
is to take you back places. I think, don’t be scared, just don’t set the house on
fire when you do the flambe. And if you’re really scared
to make a steak, then call me. I’ll come in your home
and make it for you. [relaxing music] I just came back from LA to
do a Chefs for LA’s charity with the chef in LA there
for people in the industry that was hurt by the fires. I like them, they gave me a French knife, a real French knife. This is not a steak knife, this is not normally what
you cut a steak with, but I felt, you know, I’ll
honor them, honor the steak. And it was a wonderful fundraising. So, if anyone watch me cutting a steak with this, forgive me. I was just trying to be sending
a kiss to my friend in LA.