Kyl Haselbauer has 20 years of experience working in fine-dining and modernist kitchens, including Bar Cotto and Anchovies &amp; Olives in Seattle. He is also the owner of Bright Spot, a café and coffee shop in Seattle.

Kyl Haselbauer

Our <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/beef-bouillon-cubes">beef bouillon cubes</a> are a cheat code for making an excellent au poivre sauce, fast.Steak au poivre is a classic preparation of seared steak with a rich and creamy stock-based sauce fortified with brandy and a whole bunch of black pepper. Traditionally prepared with a filet, the sauce is meant to provide all the flavor that the extremely tender, yet quite bland, tenderloin lacks. Our bouillon cubes are both super flavorful and have a ton of gelatin, which means they’re the perfect building blocks for making an incredible sauce. (That applies to our <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/chicken-bouillon-cubes">chicken</a> and <a href="https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/pork-bouillon-cubes">pork</a> bouillon cubes, too, which can also be used in this recipe.)That gelatin content is particularly important for a high-fat sauce. Between the butter and the cream, there’s a ton of dairy fat that needs to be transformed into an emulsion with the other liquids in the sauce, and the more gelatin in the liquid, the easier it is to bind up the fat in the sauce, creating a super silky mouthfeel.Of course, a bunch of fat can also make the flavor of the sauce kind of muddy, so the seasoning and flavor of the liquid you add to the pan is also very important. The bouillon cubes have flavor for days, and they’re seasoned with enough salt and MSG that they can stand up to all that butter and cream. A little brandy and some herbs and an ample amount of peppercorns, both green and black, give the sauce extra oomph and complexity.

Instant Au Poivre Pan Sauce