I love French food. This dish is a perfect example of how the French look at finishing dishes so they taste so good. To make Steak Au Poivre, it makes sense to get the best filet mignon you can find. The dish depends on a great piece of meat. Luckily for us, we had a wonderful filet in the freezer. You want to get the meat to room temperature and then salt them on all sides about a half hour before you start cooking. While they are resting, you want to crush black pepper corns in a pestal till they are roughly broken. This does not work with ground pepper nearly as well. Trust me on this. After the pepper is crushed, coat the meat on all sides by pressing the meat down into the pepper. Reserve the rest for the sauce.
You sear the meat on all sides for a minute or two in butter and a little neutral oil to get a good crust. Then drop the meat onto a cookie sheet and put it in the oven to get to medium rare. Keep an eye on it so it doesn’t go over.
The sauce you drop some butter into the pan along the chopped shallots, and a sprig of thyme. Cook till they are soft, then add the reserved pepper, and remove the thyme aftet it sizzles, Add some brandy, and light it. Add the beef stock and cook it down a little, then add the cream adjust for salt and get it into a yummy sauce. Plate the filet, then add the sauce.
We served the filet with Au Gratin Potatoes.
It was a top 5 of all time meal for sure
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