Easy to make and ready in as little as 30 minutes, creamy peppercorn sauce over a perfectly cooked steak is as elegant to look at as it is delicious to eat. Yum!
Peppercorns. “The world’s most popular spice is a berry that grows in grapelike clusters on the pepper plant (Piper nigrum), a climbing vine native to India and Indonesia. The berry is processed to produce three basic types of peppercorn—black, white and green. The most common is the black peppercorn, which is picked when the berry is not quite ripe, then dried until it shrivels and the skin turns dark brown to black. It’s the strongest flavored of the three—slightly hot with a hint of sweetness”. Read more foodterms.com
Ingredients
For the steak
1 or 2 steaks, tenderloin or other cut of your choice
1 garlic clove
Coarsely ground black pepper and salt
Butter
Olive oil
For the sauce
1 shallot, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
3/4 cup beef broth
1 to 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/4 cup Heavy Cream
Green peppercorns (use to taste and soak in beef broth a few hours before making sauce to infuse flavours)
Directions
- Rub steaks with garlic clove and season with ground black pepper and salt. Add a little butter and olive oil to a pan. Cook steaks over medium high heat to desired doneness. Remove from pan and set aside.
- In the same pan, make the sauce by adding chopped shallot and garlic to the drippings. Cook for about 30 seconds and add the beef broth along with the peppercorns and the Dijon mustard. Simmer until reduced. Add cream and simmer a few minutes longer. Note: If you want to ‘up the flavour’, simply crush a few of the peppercorns while reducing sauce.
- Spoon peppercorn sauce over steaks and enjoy!
