Shadowing Practice: The Best Steak Frites At Home - Learn English Speaking with Video

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If your steak doesn't look like this, and your fries don't sound like this, you didn't really make steak frites.

We'll begin by seasoning our steaks.

Here I've got a couple beautiful ribeyes that I'm going to cover generously with salt, making sure to flip them in the process so we cover both sides, even propping them up like this to make sure I season the edges as well.

The amount of salt you use will differ depending on what cut of steak you're using.

For instance, if you decide to make make your steak frites with a hanger steak, which actually happens to be my favorite cut of meat in the entire cow, you'd want to salt it more since hanger is a leaner cut of beef than a ribeye.

But today I thought we'd go fancy for all of you watching and use a couple beautiful ribeyes.

Once our steaks are fully seasoned we'll place this into the fridge overnight

which will give them flavor and dry out the crust so we can get a better sear.

While our steak is brining let's move on to make our fries.

First fill a bowl with cold water and set it off to the side, then cut a thin slice off your potato

so you can lay it flat like this

and then using a ruler as your guide cut a slice of potato that's a quarter of an inch thick.

Normally when food gets stuck to your knife like this your first instinct is usually to take it off

but here you want to leave it.

You can use it as a guide to cut your next

slice giving you the perfect built-in measurement tool for every single cut.

Once you've fully sliced a potato grab the ruler once again

and use it to cut a fry that's a quarter of an inch thick on all sides.

And now just follow that exact same technique using each fry you cut as a guide for cutting the next one.

And as you cut, toss those fries in the cold water to prevent them from browning.

As a next step, we're going to give our french fries an extra quick rinse.

This is to get off any excess starch before cooking, and you can see what already came off at the bottom of the bowl here.

And then into a big pot they go along with some water, a big handful of salt, and a sprinkle of baking soda.

Once it eventually comes to a boil, turn off the heat and let this sit for three minutes.

The goal with this step is to partially cook the fries, but the baking soda in there also does some fancy science to give you crispier fries later.

After three minutes have passed, transfer the fries to a paper towel lined baking sheet

and then carefully spread them all out to give them even space to cool down.

I thought I'd have some fun and give you a really cool french fry time lapse.

When your fries are done, place these in the fridge for 30 minutes or preferably overnight, left uncovered.

While our fries and steak are in the fridge, we're going to move on to make our sauce.

Classic french bistros often serve a sauce with their steak frites and for me, it's not complete without the sauce.

The sauce is really what brings the entire plate together.

For our sauce, we'll add some mayonnaise to a blender along with some sour cream, Dijon mustard, that, believe it or not, I brought back for my last trip to Paris, as well as a few cloves of garlic.

Now, we'll blend this up, making sure that garlic is completely blended into the sauce.

You'll probably need to scrape down the edges of the blender a couple times to make sure

that garlic really gets fully mixed.

Now, we add in my favorite part of the sauce, these beautiful fresh herbs.

We'll use a combination here of fresh parsley, fresh chives, and fresh tarragon.

Then, we'll add in some fresh lemon zest.

This, along with those herbs and everything else we're adding, is going to make a sauce that has everything that our steak frites doesn't.

It's why I think a sauce is so important with steak frites.

You can customize and add whatever you want in there to perfectly balance out the flavor of the steak and the fries.

Last but not least, make sure to use all that lemon juice, as well as some fresh cracked pepper, and a little pinch of salt.

Now, just blend it up until smooth, giving it a quick taste to make sure it doesn't need more seasoning, and you'll be left with a beautiful, balanced, vibrant green sauce.

This will go into the fridge until you're ready to use it, which reminds me, it's finally time to fry our french fries.

We'll cook our fries in batches and fry them not once, but twice.

This first fry is at a lower temperature, and it's what I call the cooking stage, with the goal being to cook our fries most of the way through.

We're not going to get too much color on the fries during this phase.

We'll get that later when we fry again.

Making french fries at home is one of those things that's actually not easy.

Getting a crispy french fry is difficult.

So I will admit, I usually have a couple bags of frozen french fries in

my freezer since it's harder to make them than you might think.

And because some of these can be pretty darn good i should also mention

that we fry these in two separate batches each time so

that we don't overcrowd the pot

when frying looks like my second batch here is done they're not quite fully crispy yet

but i can't wait for you to hear what they sound like

when we actually finish them we need to give our oil a bit of time to heat up to

that higher temperature now so i'm going to move it off to the side

while we make our steak to cook our steak we'll go oil into a cast iron pan

and get that oil ripping hot get it to the point that you see very light smoke Just before searing, we'll add black pepper to each of our steaks.

My friend Babish gave me this pepper mill as a present, so every time I use it, I think of him.

If you're watching, Babish, thank you.

I love this thing.

Alright, time to cook.

Right as that steak goes down, I'm gonna press it down in every little corner to make

sure it's making full contact with the whole bottom of the pan, and if you like, you can add on a couple weights to make sure it really gets that hard sear.

After I feel an initial crust has formed on the bottom, I'm gonna constantly move my steak around, just to make sure I let the oil climb up into every nook and cranny to get us the perfect crust.

Once you feel like you've gotten the perfect crust, go ahead and flip.

Once we've flipped our steak, we're going to turn down the heat and add in some butter, some crushed cloves of garlic, a little bit of thyme, and a squeeze of lemon, which we're going to throw in there to get some extra flavor too.

When butter basting, I like to push all the aromatics above the steak

so they stay up there as I spoon

that flavorful butter all across the steak to finish cooking it and give it that incredible flavor.

Butter basting is absolutely something you should learn if you cook a lot of steaks.

I've done it so many times now that I can literally just do it with my eyes closed.

Maybe I'll do the rest of the video with my eyes closed.

Actually, I won't because I have to fry those french fries in a second, and I think that doesn't set a very good example.

I've cooked enough steaks now that if I just poke it a few times, I can generally tell if it's done or not.

And I can tell that after resting, this one's going to be perfect medium.

I know, I know.

I'm supposed to like medium rare, I get it.

But I like medium, it's good.

One of the best things Gordon Ramsay ever taught me was

to rest those aromatics on top of the steak once you finish cooking, and then hit it with a few nice spoonfuls of that hot, delicious butter.

I'm not going to cook this second steak.

I'll save that for one of you if you decide to come over later for steak frites, but for now, we need to get back to those French fries.

Actually, we might have to wait a little bit because I forgot to turn on my heat.

We'll be right back.

With our beautiful steak resting off to the side, it's time to finish the fries.

In we go into our hotter oil.

This time, we're frying at a much higher oil temperature, and we don't have to fry in batches.

For this step, you shouldn't need to fry for too long.

I barely had time to say anything and already mine are ready.

Listen to this.

Nice.

Quickly, while the fries are still hot, hit them with your favorite seasoning

and make sure they get a generous sprinkle of salt and then give them a nice toss.

I'm just going to play some nice music for you for a second

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and let you watch this because how great did those look?

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One more thing with the french fries before we plate.

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I need you to listen to this crunch.

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Fries done.

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Let's cut our steak and plate.

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Even though I've probably cooked thousands of steaks, I still get nervous every time when I go to cut into one.

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I get nervous mostly that it'll be medium rare instead of medium.

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I'm just kidding.

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I like medium rare too.

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I'm going to slice the whole ribeye all the way down at a nice angle

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because I think that'll look pretty for our plating.

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But let's see how we did on the cook.

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That is as perfect medium as I think I've ever seen on a steak.

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I'll let you be the judge of that.

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All right, time for plating.

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I'll leave this here for my sauce and as for my steak I'll curl it nicely around the side of my plate.

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We still got plenty of scraps over here for snacking on.

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Wow!

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And then on go my fries in a nice big pile.

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Here let me turn that for you so you can actually see what's going on.

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And to finish you can't forget about that green sauce.

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And there it is everybody the best steak frites you will ever see.

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Well maybe outside of France.

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I'd say something if my mouth wasn't so full right now.

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Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
steak noun	/steɪk/	Beefsteak: a slice of beef, broiled or cut for broiling.
fry verb	/fɹaɪ/	To cook (something) in hot fat.
slice noun	/slaɪs/	That which is thin and broad.
ribeye noun		Synonym of ribsteak (an unfilleted ribsteak, with the bone-in)
crust noun	/kɹʌst/	A more solid, dense or hard layer on a surface or boundary.
batch noun	/bæt͡ʃ/	The quantity of bread or other baked goods baked at one time.
garlic noun	/ˈɡɑɹlɪk/	A plant, Allium sativum, related to the onion, having a pungent bulb much used in cooking.
flavor noun	/ˈfleɪvə/	The quality produced by the sensation of taste or, especially, of taste and smell in combined effect.
crispy adjective	/ˈkɹɪs.pi/	Having a crisp texture; brittle yet tender.
sear verb	/sɪə̯(ɹ)/	To char, scorch, or burn the surface of (something) with a hot instrument.
bake verb	/beɪk/	To cook (something) in an oven (for someone).
blend verb	/blɛnd/	To mingle; to mix; to unite intimately; to pass or shade insensibly into each other.
lemon noun	/ˈlɛmən/	A yellowish citrus fruit.
potato noun	/pəˈteɪ.təʊ/	The edible starchy tuber of the plant species Solanum tuberosum.
pepper noun	/ˈpɛp.ə/	A plant of the family Piperaceae.

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
come over verb		To affect in a sudden, unprecedented or surprising manner; to overwhelm a person's ordinarily contrary impulse.
cool down verb	/kuːl ˈdaʊn/	To become cooler; to be reduced in temperature.
dry out verb		To cause moisture to be completely removed from; to make dry.
get back to verb		Return to (an activity)
get off verb		To move from being on top of (something) to not being on top of it.
go ahead verb	/ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/	To proceed with; to begin.
go along with verb		To acquiesce to or comply with a proposal, despite lacking a desire or value for it.
go down verb		To descend; to move from a higher place to a lower one.

Structure	In the video
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	you've fully sliced · have passed · has formed
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	are fully seasoned · is completely blended · be left
Advice with “should” should + verb — saying what is a good idea	should also mention · should learn · shouldn't need
Possibility with “might / may” might/may + verb — something that is possible but not certain	might think · might have

Shadowing Practice: The Best Steak Frites At Home - Learn English Speaking with Video

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