Gordon Ramsay Cooks Up a Simple Steak Dinner with Fries

Beautiful. Off go the eyebrows. Welcome to The Next Level Kitchen, where I'm challenging myself and my fellow judges to cook up delicious recipes full of tips, amazing tricks, to help take your cooking to the next level. So today, my challenge is to make an amazing, cheap, not too expensive, steak night dinner. Perfect for a great date, nights with the friends, or even family. But first, let me run you through the ingredients. Now, steak. This is a beautiful skirt steak. It's one of the sort of butcher's cuts. It's very delicious. Doesn't look the most appetizing, but once it's cooked, it is incredible. The secret here is to let it rest and cut on the bias. Basically, a cut across. Aromatics, some fresh rosemary, some thyme, a little bit of garlic. For the pepper sauce, the peppercorn sauce, it's shallots and garlic. And then these, little Maris Piper potatoes. Basically, potatoes full of lots of starch. I'm gonna show you a little trick how to get them super thin. We're gonna blanch them twice at a low heat, and then whack up the temperature and get them nice and crispy. They're gonna be called shoestring fries. First off, the steak, okay? It's really important to help this steak marinate. So again, I like to get the steak marinated with seasonings 10, 15 minutes before I cook it. Salt, pepper, and then just roll that in and literally get the steak up to room temperature. If you get the steak up to room temperature, I promise you, it'll cook so much more even. The fat will soften, therefore, it'll render quickly. If a steak comes out of the fridge and it's ice cold, it's really impossible to get that cooked spot on, especially in the center. Now, from there, touch of oil, get that pan nicely smoking. I like to get the garlic and literally just crush the garlic with the back of the knife lightly, and that will allow all that oil to really perfume. Steak in, lay away from you. Now, I've got a really nice sort of beveled edge on that pan. Use the pan and let the pan do the work. Tilt the pan and it cooks the back of the steak and really keep that on a high heat. If we don't get the color on there, the actual skirt steak turns really gray. So be vigorous with the color and show some confidence, but let the pan do the work. Turn down the heat and literally, if your pan starts getting too hot, add a touch more cold oil to cool the thing down. Now, the potatoes. These have been washed, cleaned, and peeled. And this little gadget here costs literally £2.50. It's the amazing peeler, but not just any peeler. It's a peeler that literally cuts nice little string across and just get onto the corner of the potato and literally pull down. And you can see what's starting to happen. Look, got these nice, beautiful shoestring fries. And the secret here is blanching them. Don't need to wash the potato. I don't like washing off all the starch. Just open them up, get the peeler on the corner, and just go down and around. Now, they're called shoestring because they literally do look like a shoestring, okay? And again, the secret here is making sure that we blanch these first and then back in to the oil the second time. It's amazing how far one potato can literally go. Now they've got a little groove on there. Go back over, turn my steak. And look, now I've got that color in there. Turn the gas right down and stick in my thyme and rosemary. With that, a little bit of butter now. And all we're gonna be doing is adding some really nice texture and flavor to that lovely steak. Gas right down and just roll that skirt steak around all those aromats. As the butter caramelizes, it turns into really nice nut brown flavor. The herbs start to perfume the steak. And once I've colored the steak nicely, I like to sit the herbs underneath and I like to just literally rest that steak on top of those herbs. And literally turn the gas right down and just leave that steak sat there. Now, back to the potatoes. Again, nice thin shards. This is a great way of sort of making, I call them quick fries. Now look, open them up. Beautiful. Don't season them at this point, but just make sure they're all nicely separated. So 150 degrees or 350 Fahrenheit. Lift your basket up and then literally drop them in. Now, this is called blanching, okay? And the secret here is to get a really nice, crispy texture on those fries. So we're not actually cooking them, we're sort of getting them half cooked. We'll take them out and then whack up the temperature and get them really nice and crispy. Now, have a look at that steak. That is absolutely beautiful. Herbs doing its job. I'm so happy with that. I don't want it literally medium. I like this thing medium rare, okay? So plenty of butter in there. Now, now for the peppercorn sauce. This is a really easy sauce to make. Get your peppercorns, whole peppercorns. Sprinkle them onto the board nice and gently. I like this sauce quite hot. Base of the pan and then just literally crunch. Also, I don't like it too fine. So that peppery flavor comes out. Now, shallot. Onion's just as good, but I don't want it too finely chopped. Otherwise it burns. I want to really start toasting the flavor of those amazing peppercorns. Shallot, nicely. Slice, garlic. Now, blanching basically is cooking without any color. As you can see, these shoestring fries are sort of half cooked now. I'm gonna take them out, let them rest, turn up the heat. Again, continue rolling that steak and just let it sit there in amongst all that wonderful flavor. Now, peppercorn sauce. A little touch of oil. Open up the flavor of those peppercorns and toasting these peppercorns now will really bring out that nice peppery flavor. I love it. So, just lightly toast them in with the shallots. This sauce is so easy to do. So straightforward and so delicious. Now, I've toasted the pepper. Couple of little knobs of butter in there. Okay. And now with my garlic. I don't want to slice the garlic. I'm gonna literally just grate that garlic over the shallots. That basically purees the garlic. Really nicely done. And look, underneath there, got that lovely garlic and add that into the shallots. Now, touch more oil. Once those shallots start to caramelize, you can see now with that garlic, it almost disappears, but it does its job. And this is where the sauce goes up to another level, okay? Peppercorns are infused and if I had to taste those shallots now, they're really peppery. But we toasted them, so it's a really nice, mellow toasting. And that's why I want the shallots nice and thick or the onions nice and thick because I don't want to lose the texture of that nice, sweet, caramelized, beautiful onion flavor. Now, for the exciting part. A little bit of brandy. Stand back, turn up the gas and flambe. In we go. Beautiful. Off go the eyebrows. Little touch in there for good measure. Mm, look at that steak. Just sitting in that beautiful flavor. Oil, beautiful. So good. I love letting that steak cool down in the pan because it's got the residual heat, but more importantly, it sort of protects it. Now, once that brandy has evaporated, got this really nice, sweet, caramelized, peppery flavor. And now, just a couple of tablespoons of beef stock. And what we're looking for is almost like a caramel color. Reduce that beautiful stock down. Shallots are caramelized, got that really nice, peppery flavor. As it's starting coming down to a glaze, then we add a heavy cream. Literally half the amount of cream as we did stock. And that'll give a really nice, rich consistency. So think about it. Steak's resting. Got this beautiful epoivre sauce. And now for the fries. Just break them up again. Whack up your heat and then back in. And this time, it's gonna go quick. Now you're gonna see the color on these fries. Beautiful. And they're starting to look like choux. Right, create the seasoning of the sauce now whilst you're, mm, that's delicious. Touch of salt. Doesn't need any more pepper. Reduce that down. I want a nice, thick, rich consistency. Now, look at these fries. Beautiful. Take them out. I love putting them in a bowl with a little bit of paper in there, okay? That absorbs any excess fat. They're really crispy. In, lightly season them. I've got a little touch of smoked paprika as well. And then on top of that, a really nice grating of aged Parmesan. And that makes the fries cheesy, spicy, and really delicious. Good. Let them sit there until we're ready. Now, I like to keep this presentation simple, okay? The steak, we never slice that too many times. Otherwise, the goodness goes on the board and not on the plate. Sauce is coming down. First off, get your fries and literally lift them up into a nice, big nest. Sit them on the plate. You can hear how crisp they are. And they look like these beautiful fried shoestring. And then, literally, look at that steak. Now, you've got those beautiful lines. We're gonna slice on the bias. I'll just take it off there. Check. It's nice and medium rare. Check the seasoning. Mm. Beautiful. One, two, three, four, and five. These bits sit on the bottom. I lightly season that. And then lift up your steak. Place that on top of those bases. The steak has rested beautifully. I'm gonna give that a nice little season over. And then just a gentle season because we've exposed the meat. So it's seasoned on the outside, but it's not seasoned in the center. I love the consistency of the pepper sauce. Nice and rich. A little knob of butter. And just let that melt in. That puts a really nice sheen on the sauce. And the butter actually mellows out the pepperiness of that toasted black pepper. But look, the color of the fries. And now, check the seasoning before we sauce. Mm. And then finally, get a nice spoon and go over. And this is where the magic starts. Doesn't need too much sauce, but I've got crushed peppers, Camelot shallots, the garlic puree, and a delicious set of shoestring fries. And that right there. Is the most amazing skirt steak with a peppercorn sauce and delicious shoestring fries. Thank you so much for watching. Now, please let me know in the comments what you think of the dish. And don't forget to subscribe for more exciting videos. Thank you.