Jeremiah & Fabian's Picanha Wildair

Recipe | April 7 2022

We play with steak au poivre at Wildair and this is a version of that. Instead of using cream to flavour and thicken the sauce, we emulsify brown butter and egg to create a thick sauce. It’s creamy but it also has a huge punch of different peppercorns, each of them playing different parts: numbing, tingling, heat. It really dials into a nice, creamy, peppery sauce but it reads differently: coating the tongue and not being too overpowering and filling.

Jeremiah Stone and Fábian von Hauske are co-head chefs at Contra and Wildair in New York. 

Serves: 2
Time: 1 hour

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Ingredients 

Steak

1 250g – 300g (8.8-10.6 oz) Westholme picanha
1 head black garlic

Wildair Au Poivre Sauce

300g (10.6 oz) butter
1 tbsp green peppercorns in brine
5g black peppercorns
5g Sichuan peppercorns
2 egg yolks
20ml (2/3 oz) shirodashi
Splash white wine vinegar
Kosher salt
30ml (1 oz) cognac, cooked off

METHOD 

1. Cook butter until slightly nutty and browning.
2. Let it cool to about 64C / 147F and drizzle into two egg yolks in a blender.
3. Throw in green peppercorns and grind in black and Sichuan peppercorns.
4. Blend, seasoning with shirodashi and vinegar and a splash of water if it’s too thick. Add salt to taste and cognac.
5. Slow-cook steak in the oven at 52C / 125F on a rack for 40 minutes.
6. Sear in a hot pan and brush with black garlic.
7. Let rest for 10 minutes, slice thinly and serve with pepper sauce.

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