Steak-Frites

I got up this morning and went to the market to get some beef. I fully expected to find some chuck (here it’s simply called neck) or another stewing/braising cut. However, when I arrived my beef lady insisted I buy another cut. The meat is cut very strangely here, but based on the look and feel of the meat and her insistence that it was soft I decided that it was either sirloin or, at worst, top round. I bought it and took it home. As I walked home, I tried to decide what to do with it. I had some good potatoes at home, and I was really looking forward to having a nice steak; so I decided to make the Belgian classic Steak-Frites. I could have left it at that, but I decided to go another step (I was having company to help me eat), instead of making simple Steak-Frites like the one I ate in Brussels at the beginning of a night that would lead to one of the worst hangovers of my life, I made Steak Au Poivre (pepper steak) with a rich, brandy-flavored cream sauce, steak fries, and roasted Brussels sprouts.

Steak-Frites with Brandy Cream Sauce and Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Step one on this dinner was to cut my steak fries. I had some really good potatoes that I got for pennies at the market. I cut them into thin wedges and coated them with dried thyme, dried oregano, salt, and pepper and then tossed all that with some sunflower oil.

While the oven heated up, I got started on the meat. First I had to cut steaks from the piece of either sirloin or round that I had bought. Then I crushed some peppercorns using a frying pan and pressed them into the surface of the beef.

By now the oven was at 450° and I tossed the Brussels sprouts along with some whole garlic cloves into some hot olive oil. I had split them and made sure to put them cut side down.

I let them cook for about 5 minutes, and when they were just browning on the bottom, I threw them into the oven. I put the potatoes in at the same time. Now that I had my sides roasting, it was time to make the meat. When my cast-iron skillet was nice and hot, I started browning the steaks. I had cut one at about 1 inch and the other at more like 3/4 inch because Ukrainians don’t like steak rare, and I wanted my friend’s to cook in the same time as mine. After 3 minutes I flipped them.

By the time the steaks looked like this, the veggies had been in oven for about half an hour. I took them out and turned off the oven. The sprouts were darkly roasted, but soft, hot, and almost artichoke-like in the center. (Exactly as Mark Bittman, from whom I stole the recipe, said they would be).

Now the steaks were done, and I put them on a platter and into the warm oven. Then I tossed some butter and finely chopped onion onto the pan and sautéed that for about 4 minutes. Then I deglazed the pan with 1/2 cup brandy.

I let this reduce for about 5 minutes until it was just a glaze on the bottom of the pan. Then I added 3/4 cup heavy cream, let that reduce for another 3 minutes and incorporated a little butter, and I had a very rich brandy sauce to dress my steaks.

I sliced up the steaks, laid them out on the plate along with some steak fries and roasted sprouts. Then I gave the meat a nice helping of sauce, and we dug in. The meat was tender and the pepper was a good foil for the sweetness of the cream and brandy. The potatoes were nice and crispy (it’d be hard to mess those up) and made the meal complete. The picture at the top is of my guest’s plate. Here’s one of mine featuring the rare steak I prefer.