Cracked Black Pepper Cream Sauce | French-Style Sauce for Steak

Coarsely crack the peppercorns in a mortar or with the bottom of a pot; do not grind them to powder. Each peppercorn should break into two or three pieces. Melt the butter in a skillet and stir in the cracked pepper over low heat. Move to the next step when the pepper smells sharp and the butter is lightly colored; this takes under one minute.

Add the finely chopped shallot and stir until softened and translucent. Do not brown it; browned shallot leaves a bitter taste in the sauce. Add the apple cider vinegar at this stage and scrape the browned bits from the bottom of the pan with a spoon.

Add the stock, raise the heat, and boil until reduced by half. Reduction is sufficient when a track drawn through the sauce with a spoon stays open for 1 second. The sauce gets its depth from the reduction and the pepper bloomed in fat; do not add any other liquid to the pan.

Lower the heat, add the cream, and stir without bringing it to a boil; keep it at a gentle simmer. The sauce is ready when it coats the back of a spoon and leaves a continuous ribbon as it runs off. Adjust the salt at the end, after the stock has reduced.