Quick Weekend Dinner Recipe : My Version of Steak Au Poivre

My version of Steak Au Poivre

A little backstory, I was always bummed because as someone who can't afford to rent a whole flat, cooking is very tedious for me, or so I thought. I got myself a multi-cooker few weeks ago and has been loving it ever since. Seriously guys, if you live in the city and you're short of space, you should really get a multi-cooker! It's a space-saver, powerful, versatile, and very easy to clean. I got me a Cornell because it comes with a non-stick pan for less than S$60.

Today I made my version of Steak Au Poivre and I loved it so much I just had to share the recipe with you. It's so easy and to think you'd have to shell out about S$40++ / pax in a restaurant for something like this is like, blasphemy.

A little disclaimer, I have never had an authentic Steak Au Poivre so I really don't know how my version would fare against the real thing. I got the basic recipe from a French cookbook but I think it was already a tweaked version which I had to tweak even further due to lack of access to certain ingredient.

STEAK AU POIVRE
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Serves 2

Ingredients:
1 pc of striploin steak, cut into 2 pcs
20g unsalted butter
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
3 tbsp of plain flour
20ml of cream
1 tbsp of black peppercorn

Sauce broth (mix the following ingredients into 1 cup):
10ml single-malt whiskey
10ml calamansi juice
1 beef bouillon cube, dilute with 1 cup of hot water

How to cook:
1. Heat butter in a non-stick pan, add garlic and onion, cook for 1 minute.

2. Add steaks, cover and cook over high heat for 2 minutes on each side; remove from pan and set aside.

Place steak on top of the sauteed onion

 *Tip: Steak Au Poivre is known for its simplicity so it's best to use the best ingredients you can have, especially the steak which is the star of the dish. Here, I use Australian Angus beef striploin.

Cook briefly on both sides

Remove the steaks and set aside

3. Stir flour through pan juices over low heat until the flour browns, pour in the sauce broth. Over high heat, stir until mixture comes to boil; reduce heat and simmer for 3 minutes until it thickens.

Add the sauce broth into the pan

*Trivia: The recipe actually calls for dry sherry or brandy but I couldn't find any at the time so I improvised using single-malt whiskey and calamansi juice;whiskey for the alcohol and calamansi juice for the fruity accord. Brandy is made from fermented fruit while whiskey is from grains, hence the use of calamansi juice.

4. Add peppercorns.

Add peppercorns

5. Add cream; stir occasionally, crushing peppercorns lightly with a spoon.

Add cream

6. Return steak to sauce; cover and cook about 5 minutes for a medium rare steak.

Return the steaks into the pan

7. Serve with aglio olio spaghetti and boiled baby carrots on the side.
8. Enjoy!

Serve with aglio olio spaghetti and boiled baby carrots on the side

Medium rare, just the way I like it