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Billy Abbott wrote: > How do you make a pepper sauce to go with steak? > > I've tried a couple of times to make nice creamy pepper sauce, but it's > always gone wrong, either not tasting of pepper or steak, seperating or > just turning into burnt milk sludge. I have also tried many different approaches with differing degrees of success. The first thing I discovered is not to use milk. It makes everything taste of boiled milk. Also, green peppercorns will give flavour without being overwhelmingly hot, which would happen with black ones. I have discovered two variants that make a nice sauce. Variant one: toast peppercorns lightly in dry pan, grind coarsely in mortar and pestle, return to pan, add white wine, reduce to 1/3 or less, thicken with cornflour, serve. This gives one quite similar to that served in the Big Easy on the King's Road. You can also caramelise onions in the pan before adding the pepper and wine, which gives a sweeter richer sauce. Variant two: grind peppercorns, add to juices in steak pan, stir, add double cream, bring to boil, serve. This gives a more creamy sauce which may be more to your taste. A splash of white wine won't go amiss here either. You could combine these, though I have never got round to trying. The wine one does require quite a lot of wine as you want to reduce it quite a lot. You could probably use less wine if you include the caramelised onions, and maybe use a splash of vinegar. --m
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