Around the Kitchen Table - Steak Diane

Hey everyone, I'm Chef Dennis Littley and welcome to Around the Kitchen Table. Happy to have you here today and my co-host Susan Serres there coming to you from New York. How you doing, Susan?

Hi, Chef, I'm great. I'm just great. We're having the September weather that is the perfect, perfect weather and it's like high 60s, it's dry, it's blue skies. So I'm feeling good. September has to be the best month in the Northeast. Maybe you remember.

I remember, and you know, we've been having some pretty good weather down here. The days are still kind of hot, and you get kind of fooled because in the morning you can go out and you can sit out on the porch in the morning and it's nice and cool, and when it's a little breezy, it's just beautiful. And then the nights are dropping down into the low 70s, so it feels really, really pleasant out. We haven't hit the 60s yet. I don't expect to see them until probably January or February.

Right. I know, but you know what, it's really funny because I find that as the seasons change and now we're certainly transitioning into fall, it seems to take me personally, I don't know if that's for most people, longer in terms of say clothing, going from summer to fall clothing, going from summer to fall foods. And I'm not ready to make the chili yet or to make— in fact, it's It's almost like I'll do one fall dish and then I'll do some summer dishes, and then as time goes on, I'll do more fall dishes and less summer dishes. You know what I mean? It's kind of a transition.

Yeah, I know. Men don't have to worry as much about clothing, at least I don't, in terms of changing your wardrobe over, but I know what you mean.

Oh yeah, I mean, forget it. You know, once you've start wearing your fall clothing, you know, okay, everyone's going to see that for the next 5 months. Am I right, ladies? I mean, I know, absolutely. So what about this weekend? Did you eat anything terrific?

Yeah, we had a nice time. I went to a conference on Saturday. I went to Florida BlogCon, and we had some fun there. And what did we eat? I think we went out to dinner Saturday night, just had a little local place and had a nice sandwich there. But what did we do yesterday? You know, it becomes all a blur for me.

I know, me too.

I know somewhere in there we had lobster one night because I didn't want to cook, and that's my failsafe for whenever I don't want to cook. I had made the salad dressing, and we've been enjoying our salads because of that.

Right, that's right, that's right. Yeah, well, I had— we had— we took out sushi, so I had sushi one night. And you know, I'll tell you something, my son, he saves the leftover sushi for the next day. I have never— I didn't think it's a good idea to do, but so I don't do it and I don't eat it. But what do you think?

Does he eat raw— is it raw fish sushi?

Yeah. I don't think it's the best idea. What do you think?

Well, he's young, so it's not going to affect him as badly as it would us. Younger people, after they hit like 20, they're pretty good until they hit about 40 with stomach issues. You can eat things that— you become almost like the family dog. You can eat things that everybody else can't. I don't want to put it in that respect.

No, but I think you're right. You're right because that's what my kids do. I have 2 boys living with me and then my future daughter-in-law, and they're grazing. Whatever's left over, they're always grazing.

Their immune systems aren't quite as easily interrupted.

They have stomachs of iron.

And I remember those days, you know, I was like, okay, you smell it? No, it doesn't smell that bad. All right, let's eat.

Right? Oh, exactly. Oh, funny. So what— so we have— now we have a fall— would you— I call this a fall dish. What do you think?

It's a classic, and we were talking about it before we started. Steak Diane used to be a staple. There's a lot of dishes that were really so popular, I think, when people really started going out to dinner. In between the '40s, you know, after World War II, into like the '80s, in the late '70s and the '80s. A lot of people, you know, there were dinner clubs, fancy restaurants, and there was a whole era of dining that I think was probably not as refined as it is now, and you didn't have as many really talented chefs out, but they came up with some really classic dishes, and a lot of them have gone by the wayside. You know, I'm sorry to see them go. One of my favorites that you never see anymore is Clams Casino. You know, I just love those. But dishes like that have kind of gone their way as people have come into different types of fusion cooking and different styles and different techniques. So it's a lot of these classics. Steak Diane wasn't technically a classic. It was invented early in the 1900s. It's not a French dish, it's an American dish. I was telling you the history of it. It was named for Diana the Huntress, you know, the Roman goddess. Yeah. Originally done in venison, you know, that went away really quick. But, you know, it's still a nice dish. You don't have to—

You know what? I would love to bring other dishes like this back throughout our broadcasts and do some that are forgotten, a little forgotten, but absolutely delicious. You know, how about you? Would you like to do that?

I think so. You know, it's like going back into my repertoire. You know, there's things— things will come to me for the oddest reason anymore. A word will just prompt something. You know, it's all stuck in that hard drive that's like overloaded with information that you can't find to save your life when you're looking for it. But all of a sudden I'll sit there and it'll just, you know, it'll just come out like that.

Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, I think we should do a little bit of retro Retro cooking, absolutely. So I really love this. Where do we go?

Let's get started then. We're going to start with our fillet. Now, I have— and you don't have to use fillet. I happen to like— well, I don't eat beef, so I don't like fillet, but I like using it and I like working with it. My wife loves it because it's so tender. But that being said, You could easily use flat iron steak. You could use a London broil type of steak and sear it, cook it, and then make the sauce separately and serve it that way. So any kind of a beef steak is really good for this. It's more the experience and the sauce. So I've got a nice size filet steak here and I'm going to split it in half. I don't want people, when I said cut it in half, to think I meant cut it directly in half, but I'm more or less going to be butterflying it, but all the way through. So I'm coming up with 2 thinner steaks.

Oh, that looks good.

Yeah, it's going to be good.

And it looks tender.

Oh yeah, it feels good. Yeah. And I did leave some of the fat. I took the membrane off of it. That would have been hard to eat, but fat brings flavor. Some of it is going to cook off and what doesn't, you know, she'll just pick off. So that's all you need to do to prepare. In the old days, we used to do it a couple different ways. One of the ways was to take mustard and coat the steak with the mustard and then dip it in flour and then sauté it. So you could do it that way. I haven't done it that way in a while and I kind of like searing the steak without it. So at this point, I'm just going to turn on my cooker. Let it get a little hot, we'll throw some butter in it and get started. Now, again, if you don't want to use butter— I'm using butter because classically when it was made, that's how it was made. But if you want to use extra virgin olive oil, that's fine, except, you know, we are making a pan sauce, and because of that, that's one of the reasons we're using butter, because the butter is going to give it some flavor as well.

Okay, I have a question for you, and this may seem— you know, some of my questions are, let's say, a little wacky, and this one might be it. I know I've in restaurants too, in more old-school type restaurants, and I forget the name of it, but essentially it's sirloin chopped meat that's— it's not in the shape of a burger, maybe it's a little bigger and rounder, but could you do this with a good chopped meat and have this sauce accompany it?

Oh, sure. Like a Salisbury steak almost kind of a thing.

Yeah, but Salisbury steak is a steak, isn't it?

No, it's chopped meat.

Okay, then that must be what I'm talking about.

It's a chopped and formed patty.

Yeah, then that must be what I'm talking about.

That would work fine. You know, anything you want to use. It doesn't have to be an expensive cut of meat because again, it's all about the sauce. And that's— I love the comment. Aslan just put up. Here we go, let's throw that up. Little ditty about Jack and Diane, two American kids growing up in the heartland. Jackie gonna be a football star and Diane got fried.

Oh, that's good.

Diane's gonna get fried right now. Actually, my version of it is called Danielle. So I'm gonna throw a little butter in here, let that get melted.

Okay, and Chef, can I— I have lots of questions on this dish. I also want to know, what about What about the pan? Can you use nonstick? Can you use— should you use— what about cast iron?

You can use any pan you like. The pan has no matter in it.

Oh, it doesn't? One type isn't— do you want a crust?

Not necessarily, no. I mean, you can have a little crust on it, but we're not really taking it to the level to put a crust worry about there being a crust on it. That's not going to be the objective here.

Okay, so you can do nonstick then?

Yes. And you know, I should have salted it and peppered it before it went in. I did forget that because I cut it in front of you. What I would have done normally is cut it, seasoned it, and let it sit for a little bit. So we'll watch the seasoning. And again, another thing about this is the meat was room temperature. It sat out for a while, so it's going to cook more evenly.

Oh, good point.

Because when they make it too cold, what happens is it'll cook faster on the outside and it'll leave the inside a little more rare. So if you like that, that's good. If you want it to be more evenly done, then you want to do it the other way. So, you know, this is pretty thin, it's going to cook pretty quick. Lisa likes hers well done, so it's going to cook a little bit longer than normal. But you can see it's starting to get a nice color. So you don't want to muddy up that nice piece of meat. Like, this is really pretty where there's a little bit of a crusting around the edge and it's starting to look nice. So that's good. All right, so as this is cooking, and we just let it cook briefly. I'm going to add in some garlic and some shallots. And if you don't like garlic or shallots or just want to use a little onion, again, that's fine. Or if you just want to use garlic, that's fine. This is again a classical interpretation of it. And that's about all I'm going to do with them there. Then I'm going to throw some mushrooms in. See, now the one thing about using butter is it's not as forgiving. And you have to be a little faster with it because butter's heating, cooking temperature is a little bit, burn temperature is a little bit lower than anything else you're going to use.

Yeah, once you put garlic in there, you better watch that garlic.

Right, so that's why, you know, it goes in, it gets a little toss, the shallots are going to hold up a little bit better.

Now tell me something about the mushrooms. Would you use different types of mushrooms? And can you really tell the difference in the taste? I never know if I really tell a difference in the taste.

Between portobellos, the small portobellos, I don't tell any difference. It's just a matter of the look. I opted for the white mushrooms for this just because I wanted the contrast.

Okay, what about like shiitake and those chanterelles and the other types of mushrooms?

Well, they're a lot woodier. That's beautiful. They're a lot— I'm going to pull this out because I don't want it to get too well done.

Okay.

This is perfect. They're woodier, and they're going to have a little bit of a different flavor. They can be good in an instance like this, or they can be good in other dishes, and they're interchangeable. You just got to make sure that you really know that flavor and you enjoy that flavor. This is pretty much all we have to do. We got our mushrooms in. They're cooked cooked well enough. We've got our shallots in. Take this off. I've got my beef off. Now I'm just going to add a little bit of bourbon. If you want to effect—

Of course, I mean, let's take us back to the 1960s.

When they used flambé. It's not necessarily necessary, and I wouldn't do it with anything that isn't long enough unless you want to singe all the hair off off your hands. But that's pretty much it. And then it says to call for some beef stock. I've actually got some chicken stock here. You can use either or. Chicken stock is just going to make the sauce a little bit lighter. The beef would make it a little richer.

So, Chef, there's not really a difference in the taste between the flame— flaming it and not flaming it?

You just want to burn the alcohol off. So it would cook enough just to get the alcohol off.

But why do you want to get the alcohol off? Silly question. Why do you want to get the alcohol off?

It does affect the flavor a little bit.

Okay.

So you don't want to have the harshness of the alcohol.

Okay.

I've got some Worcestershire sauce here. Alright, so we have the stock in there.

The—

that's burned off. I'm going to add some mustard. And again, it's a brown mustard. I need one more thing. I did not get my cream out.

Nice blend of flavors there.

Now we hit it with a little bit of— oops, top's on, I haven't used it yet.

Okay, now what about any low-fat substitutes for the cream?

Sure. Nonfat Greek yogurt, half-and-half, light cream. But again, you know, this isn't going to be something you're going to eat all the time.

Yeah.

So that's going to reduce, and once it's reduced, we're going to serve it up.

So that's very light. That's a very light color.

Yeah, it is. It's going to cook down a little bit. The beef stock— if I had had beef stock It would have been a little bit darker. So that would have been a difference. Now I'm going to throw a little bit of butter and flour in there.

Oh, there you go. There you go. If you missed it, he took it with his fingers.

I certainly did. That's my verminier, and that's how I tighten up any pan sauces or any sauté dishes. So this is pretty much— I'm going to turn it down a little more. Oh yeah, nice flavor.

Finger looking good.

Just let it reduce just a little bit more.

I want to see you stir it with your fingers. I remember you said that.

There you go. I'm a little out of practice.

That was fast.

Well, I'm a little out of practice and it was a little hot. Wow. Induction cookers get really hot fast.

They do.

The whole trick with stirring with your fingers is you didn't do it at the end. You did it when you added all the ingredients in. Oh, okay. It wasn't that hot yet, okay?

No, but you know, you can handle it. So I think this dish goes so well with entertaining, and I have some thoughts about entertaining in the kitchen. Should we transition now, or should we wait a little bit?

Oh, fine. Let's talk. This is reducing.

Okay. So, you know, I'll tell you, I've designed kitchens for people who they they really are passionate cooks and they want their kitchen designed so that they can sort of be center stage and, you know, and talk to their guests and, you know, have that whole big social thing going on. And, you know, Chef, I see that of course you have an island and I'm wondering, I'd like to ask you, you know, you have guests over and Do you find the island as a social gathering place, and are you cooking in front of your guests, and do you enjoy that?

I usually don't cook in front of them unless it's something like a show that we're doing. You know, being the kind of anal retentive person, chef, that I am, I want everything to be done before they really get here or get situated, so I won't be actually finishing some cooking. I do use the stove for cooking, and I'll leave things like if I'm making soups or anything hot If I have a big— my big Crock-Pot, the huge one, I'll put stuff in there, or I'll leave stuff on the stove on a very low temperature, just warming, and let them come around and eat. But, you know, I tell you, I would never want to be in a kitchen without an island again. It's just— wow, it has made such a big difference. I mean, we had one where we lived before, but it was so small, it was almost wasn't worth having.

Interesting.

This one is really a good size. I could see it just a little bit bigger. There's enough room for it here. But I mean, it just has made my life so much more enjoyable when people are over, especially because now they can sit on the other side. You know, they can just mill around here. There's a place to put food down if they're eating. They don't have to be as precarious walking around, and not everyone has to jam themselves around the dinner table.

You're right, it's all about flexibility, and I have a few pictures to show, just stuff and kitchens that are designed for entertaining and different little ideas here and there. So I'm going to bring those up real quick, and here, yep, okay. So, yes, so here's one. Now this is a pretty fancy kitchen, and this is if you want your kitchen sort of integrated into surrounding rooms and you want your kitchen to also speak the language of, you know, a little formality and sort of a room rather than a utilitarian space, you know, you might have something like this, you know, pretty gigantic chandelier, but still we have the sink there, we have the cutting board, and imagine this being a social place, which I think you know, we could do very well. Here's a big island. Now again, this— it has the look of something formal, yet it's utilitarian. You have the sink and the cooktop right there. So how much— you know, it just gives a whole other feeling to being in the kitchen. Here's some areas that these doors can conceal the open sort of closet areas, but, and you know, you have lighting there. It looks special. It doesn't look so utilitarian even though it is. Here's a, you know, kind of cool sort of table concept that has a cooktop on it, and then we have specialty areas. Here's the wine area, and over there's another little prep area. So, and it is wide open, it is utilitarian, but it's also a furniture kind of a Look, here's an island. I mean, doesn't everyone have a Grecian bust on their island? I mean, you know, really. And it also has a lower section for dining, for putting buffet items, whatever. And here's a little bit of a glam table. This could be a prep table, it could be a dining table. And how about some herbs? How about a way to separate the kitchen from the surrounding room? And then you have some herbs all across. So that's sort of a cool way to do it. And here's an expansive— don't we all have room for an island this size in our homes?

I wish.

I know, right? So this is just going every which way, and it can accommodate so many different, so many different lifestyles. And here there are two big sort of armoires, and you open the doors and then they are you know, their countertops and prep areas, individual prep areas. So kitchens don't look— are not always looking like kitchens anymore. They're integrating with surrounding rooms. And here's a little cart that's next to an island, really cool. And we're just, you know, sort of— the kitchen is evolving into a more sort of environment, and that's what I have to show you.

Great. Yeah, kitchens have changed from being a place where you just gathered around and cooked to being more of an interactive section of the house. I mean, you see computers going into kitchens, tables going into kitchen desks. They're becoming more active spaces, which is a good thing because anytime you can get people back into the kitchen, however you do it, it's a good thing. You just got to remember to cook in it too.

That's right. That's right.

So This is pretty much— I mean, it's thickened up nicely here. It's darkened up just a little bit. This is something too that you could do ahead of time if you wanted to for a party. Let's say you wanted to serve Steak Diane or something similar. You could have roasted a whole fillet too and just made the sauce and served it over it as you sliced it down. That would be nice. Or again, a flat iron steak. A flank steak or anything resembling that.

You know, I do want to ask you, because I meant to ask you, how do you tell— how do you like to tell when the meat is done to your liking? Do you and Lisa both like it well done?

Oh no, I don't eat beef, but when I did, it had to be rare, and she eats it well done. So no, it's a little harder, but the way to tell is if you use your hand and you push right here. Oh! Okay, that should be medium rare.

Okay. Oh my gosh!

So that's medium rare. Okay. Alright, so we've got it plated. Now if I had taken it off Any juice that was left, there really wasn't much here, would have gone back into this. And then let me get a decent-sized spoon to do this. All right, so you've got your steak there. And if it— now, one thing about fillet is it does not have to be piping hot, okay? It can be warm to hot. Now, this could go back in the pan I hate to muddy it up with the sauce because it's so pretty. I like to get them to a temperature. If you wanted to cook this a little more, you might even think about just popping it in the oven for a few minutes to warm it up, to get a little more temperance. When you take them off, put them on a cookie sheet in a low oven. At this point, it's done. Then we're just going to take our sauce. Remember, the filet is the star.

Uh-huh.

So you want it to remain the star, so the sauce is not going to cover— okay, cover everything. So that'd be pretty much it. And then in the initial recipe, these get cooked into it, but I don't like to cook them because they just turn to mush and they get ugly. The green onions, so I use them more as a garnish at this point. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Little bit of parsley. You want to hit it with a little bit more salt and pepper.

That looks great.

It's okay to have a little bit of green around the edge of the plate. You just don't really want the pepper or salt there.

Okay, that looks terrific.

Even if you were— wanted to decorate a plate a little, take a little parsley.

Can you turn that 90 degrees? Not 180, but 90. Yes, perfect, perfect. Yeah, there we go. Nice. Oh, I love the parsley on the plate.

Yeah, so just take the parsley in your fingers and just boom. We used to make a confetti We would take carrots, take beets, and take parsley. The only trick with it that you have to do is you have to squeeze all the liquid out of the carrots and the beets or it turns into a mush. You just want to put them in a napkin, squeeze it out, and then mix all 3 together and you have a very colorful confetti. If you don't have time— this actually isn't parsley because I didn't have any, and it's a little spinach.

Okay, now that looks just wonderful. Now I do have one question. What do you think about— would it be too many flavors to add, say, something like fresh thyme, fresh tarragon, or thyme, or rosemary? Would that enhance it at all, or it's just unnecessary?

I think with the flavor of the bourbon flavor of the shallots, I think it might be a little too much for the dish.

And probably for the Worcestershire sauce.

Yeah, I think it might just be taking it over a little to a different realm. One of the things that people do get involved with a lot of times with fusion is they start blending in too many flavors. You want them to stay intact to the point where you can identify them. But not really being so overpowering that they're going to— just like the sauce shouldn't be too mustardy, it shouldn't be too Worcestershire sauce, it should be a blend.

Okay, so it's a classic for a reason.

Yeah, you know, and again, it's flavors, it's simple, it's simplicity. I mean, you saw how fast it was to make.

Yeah.

And again, if you were doing a flat iron steak or a flank steak and you wanted to grill it, you wanted to roast it in the oven, and then just make your sauce on the stovetop with mushrooms, you can do that and just serve it that way. I mean, it does not have to go into the pan to be fried with butter. You could avoid that step if you wanted to. It's all about presentation. It's all about— if you got a flank steak, and I should do one to show you, you want to make sure you're slicing it down in nice slices and put it all back together so it's presented nicely. One thing about beef If you're going to cut beef, or even chicken for that matter, any meat that you roast, you need to let it rest before you cut it. I don't mean tuck it into bed with a blanket and all that. I mean set it down, don't touch it, don't cut it. Give it a good 10 minutes. The thicker the meat, the longer you need to let it rest.

Okay, but I have a question. Do you take it out maybe a little bit before you think it's done and then it'll continue cooking?

Yes, meat raises 10 degrees after it comes out of the oven. Okay, it continues to cook. Again, the bigger the piece of meat, the longer it's going to keep cooking that you leave it intact. So when you pull a piece of meat out, if you want 145, if you're looking at beef, it should come out around 135, 140, in that range. If you pull it out at 145, you're liable to get 150, 155. 55. It might not be that medium rare that you wanted, or it might not be red enough for you. Usually red is the only problem we have. You can always cook it longer to make it more done. It's hard to take it away once it's out. Even with poultry or pork, it's the same thing. It's going to raise about another 10 degrees as it continues to cook.

Yeah. I feel with poultry that you almost have a very small window, an extremely small window where it's not raw and it's not overdone, right?

The problem with poultry is that the dark meat tends to cook a little differently than the white meat. By the time you got your dark meat cooked, the white meat's dried out. Those are the problems that you run into. Sometimes I think we should just roast chickens upside down for for the most part so that the top gets more heat, or open them up. I think sometimes we're married to the fact that we want to put that whole bird in there. Maybe we need to split it down the middle and just put the halves in instead so it's easier to control how we cook. You don't even have to go all the way, just butterfly it and open it up. Yeah. A little easier.

Well, this is a beautiful, beautiful dish. Easy.

Elegant.

And I think it's a perfect dish to do if you're socializing, if you're entertaining in the kitchen, because it really— the steps are very easy. And if you're that type of person that you like to cook as a little bit of performance art, yeah, and also a good one.

If you're doing a party, one piece would be enough if you're serving different foods. Don't think that you have to, you know, give each person like 6 8 ounces of meat. 3 or 4 ounces is plenty if you're doing some kind of a service. You're going to give them— like, I would make garlic mashed potatoes to go with this, and I've got some green beans back here I'm going to cook for tonight very simply. There's so much more that they're going to eat in comparison to this. If you give them less than you think they want, they're going to savor it. If you give them too much, the last few bites are going to be forced and full.

Oh, I love it.

So leave them wanting.

Leave them wanting. Well, we'll leave our viewers wanting, Chef, and thanks so much for this one. This was really great. I mean, the classics are for a reason.

Absolutely. You know, it's good. They're forgotten, so let's bring them back and your guests will go, wow.

Yeah, yeah, let's do that in future shows.

Sounds good. Sounds like a plan to me. All right, Susan, thanks so much for coming. And everyone who joined us, Jamal, Aslan, Elena, I see you. Nazim is in the house. Sandra Watson and Elena. Yeah, Maggie Unzueta is here. We've got such a nice crew. Christopher Vogelman's in the house. So thank you all for stopping by. Sorry if I missed anyone, but we'll see you again next week around your kitchen table. So have a great week.

Bye-bye.