Bistrot Paul Bert Pepper Steak For French Fridays with Dorie

Bistrot Paul Bert is a family owned restaurant in Paris that serves up a great piece of beef.  Dorie Greenspan likes their pepper steak so much that she asked for the recipe and put it in her critically acclaimed cookbook Around My French Table.  The online cooking group, French Fridays with Dorie liked it so much that they voted to make it together for this French Friday.  I liked the recipe so much that I made it to share along with the rest of the Doristas who post their links here.  There are more than 300 hundred excellent recipes in Around My French Table, including this pepper steak recipe.  I'm not supposed to give the recipe so you should really consider picking up a copy of the cookbook, if you haven't already.  At Bistrot Paul Bert the steak comes with fries or frites but I decided on a lighter alternative and made a pan of oven roasted Yukon Gold potatoes to serve on the side.  The potatoes are covered in a light coat of olive oil and sea salt.  I bake them in a hot oven until they are golden brown on the bottom and flip them until they are colored on both sides.  The steak was fun to make using pounded mixed peppercorns that are pressed into the meat.  After cooking the steaks in a hot cast iron skillet with butter and grapeseed oil. I removed the them from the pan and poured in the Cognac, which gives off a lot of smoke. You may choose to either simmer or ignite the Cognac by tipping the pan towards the flame on the burner.  There will be a lot of smoke coming off the skillet from the hot butter, oil and meat, which makes it a good candidate for outdoor cooking. We have a burner on our outdoor gas barbecue so I asked Scott to fire it up while I was bringing everything outside to cook. While the steaks rest after cooking the sauce is finished with a swirl of gently bubbling heavy cream and a slight amount of sea salt.  Don't be shy with those peppercorns, along with the sauce, they really make this dish.