Rob: Alright, once again, I’m Rob Carson, I’m a radio personality, and I cook, and today, we’re working with my buddy chef Bryan from bryanskitchen.com, that’s Bryan with the Y, we’ve got this brilliant New York steaks in the oven right now, roasting at 425 degrees and now we’re gonna work on the cognac butter, tell us how we do this.
Bryan: Okay, what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna start with a pound of butter, we’re gonna cut it into smaller pieces so that it’s easy to work with in the mixture.
Rob: Yes.
Bryan: Makes it easier for the mixture to break it down.
Rob: And obviously.
Bryan: And if you have a chance.
Rob: I’m sorry.
Bryan: Try and pull it out so they can get soft.
Rob: Okay, you wanted…
Bryan: To room temperature.
Rob: Room temperature.
Bryan: Yes.
Rob: Okay.
Bryan: Okay, so basically, what we’re gonna do now is just kinda turn the mixer on low.
Rob: Okay.
Bryan: Until we get it nice and creamy, and then we’re gonna start adding our, adding our seasonings to it. I’ve got a mix here of chopped sage, and thyme.
Rob: Okay, sage and thyme.
Bryan: We’re gonna add a tablespoon.
Rob: Okay.
Bryan: Of the chopped fresh herb there.
Rob: Excellent.
Bryan: We’re gonna add about 2 tablespoons of parsley.
Rob: Okay. You know lot of times people think that parsley is a garnish or it is not important to the flavor of, of a meal, but actually, I, I think parsley is excellent.
Bryan: Plus it’s a great flavor.
Rob: Sure.
Bryan: I mean, it really is, it’s light, subtle, but it really does accent different flavor.
Rob: Okay, now we got the green end of the green onion, we threw in there as well.
Bryan: Green end of the green onion in there.
Rob: So we got a nice herbed butter going now.
Bryan: Correct.
Rob: Alright.
Bryan: Now we’re gonna add a little bit of salt.
Rob: Again koshered salt.
Bryan: Koshered salt.
Rob: Okay.
Bryan: And then we’re gonna add a little bit of fresh ground pepper.
Rob: Okay. There you go.
Bryan: Correct. And a, I don’t know if you can see this, but in the mixture with the paddle, the butter’s kinda pulling up on the paddle.
Rob: (slurry) yeah.
Bryan: Turn that up on high.
Rob: Wow.
Bryan: And then turn it back down, it will pull it off the side. Okay.
Rob: That’s a good idea. That’s a good tip. Yeah, it’s good to know. So a, so, how long do we let this mix, and when do we stop?
Bryan: We’ll gonna mix it, until it gets nice and soft.
Rob: Okay.
Bryan: Okay. We want the flavors to have a chance to meld.
Rob: Okay.
Bryan: At the very end we’re going to add the finishing touches, which is the Courvoisier de cognac.
Rob: Excellent. Alright. So now we’ve got the butter, the herbed butter mixed very nicely. You’ve got a whole pound of butter here, which, if you’re gonna make steaks again at a later date it’s fine, but you know what I’m thinking, if you took some of these herbed butter without the cognac, you could make a great butter for sweet corn.
Bryan: Sweet corn. Beans.
Rob: Baked potato. Green beans. Come on.
Bryan: Anything you put butter on.
Rob: Excellent. How much will you need for these 4 steaks do you think.
Bryan: Well, depends on…
Rob: How much butter you want.
Bryan: How much butter you want on them. Ideally, you want about, at maximum, a tablespoon per serving.
Rob: Ah well.
Bryan: Okay, I would probably go a little bit less than that, depends on how healthy you wanna be or how much flavor you want.
Rob: For eating a cow, you might as well make it unhealthy, you know, eh, anyway. Alright, so let’s go ahead and add the cognac to make it a cognac butter, shall we.
Bryan: We shall.
Rob: Alright. And this is a tragedy, a kitchen with an unopened bottle of cognac Courvoisier, it shouldn’t happen.
Bryan: Okay, so we’re gonna put the paddle back on.
Rob: Alright.
Bryan: Basically, what I did was just pull it off straight down the side, let’s get all the butter in there.
Rob: Okay. Alright.
Bryan: We’re gonna turn it back on low, this is something you wanna do on low.
Rob: Okay.
Bryan: If you got it going high and you put this in you’re gonna end up with courvoisier all over the place. Okay.
Rob: And I had parties like that. Okay, so they got a whole pound of butter in here, how much couvoisier you’re gonna add?
Bryan: What we’re gonna do since we’re not cooking down, it’s gonna be the strong raw flavor.
Rob: Okay.
Bryan: I’m gonna add a tablespoon.
Rob: Okay.
Bryan: We’re gonna stop it, taste it, and if we need to have more, we will.
Rob: Alright.
Bryan: And you can smell it as it’s grouping around the flavors really coming out.
Rob: Oh yeah. Really good.
Bryan: Now, if you wanna turn down the flavor of the cognac, you can always put in our pan, reduce it.
Rob: Uh huh.
Bryan: And that’s gonna bring most of the alcohol content out of it.
Rob: Out of it. Okay.
Bryan: So, well we want this flavor.
Rob: Well I have a feeling, by leaving it strong, it’s gonna really compliment the steaks well. You want a hearty flavor to compliment those, the red meat that’s cracking, so. Okay.
Bryan: If you wanna do something like they say you wanna do over a piece of grilled chicken, and use the cognac butter, you might wanna tone down the cognac.
Rob: Okay. Alright.
Bryan: On a piece of chicken or fish.
Rob: Alright. Alright, I’m gonna try the cognac butter, again about a teaspoon of cognac in this butter. Oh wow. It’s really good, and you know, the thing is you just put a little bit of cognac in it, so it’s kind of a finish, it’s not like el, out there like, oh my god, there’s cognac in here.
Bryan: Doesn’t hit you upfront, it hits you at the end.
Rob: Now, you wanna make a point about not adding too much cognac to it.
Bryan: Yeah. Any time you add something to a recipe, it’s always better to add slowly.
Rob: Sure.
Bryan: You can always add more, but once it’s in, it’s hard to take it out.
Rob: Yeah, and then you got to make 2 pounds of cognac butter.
Bryan: Exactly.
Rob: Coz I do that all the time, and then I apt like 10 pounds of cognac butter, coz I added too much, and I hate that. Alright. So we’ve got about a pound of beautiful herbed cognac butter, and we’re only gonna use about a teaspoon to a tablespoon per se, steak.
Bryan: Right.
Rob: My case, 2 tablespoons per steak, what are we, how are we gonna save the leftover butter.
Bryan: Alright, what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna take out, basically what we’re gonna need, maybe a little bit extra.
Rob: Okay. Yeah, because you know what, you might want it on your toast tomorrow.
Bryan: Right. okay. Then what we’re gonna do is we take a piece of parchment paper.
Rob: Okay.
Bryan: And we’ll gonna scrape the rest of this butter out on the parchment paper.
Rob: Okay, very good. This will be so good on a baked potato, you know.
Bryan: This will be good on any vegetable, potatoes.
Rob: Seriously, yup.
Bryan: Okay.
Rob: However you go.
Bryan: Okay, so we’re gonna kinda spread this out, as evenly as we can.
Rob: Sure.
Bryan: Try to get most of it on there, and we’re gonna take this, and we’re gonna fold, fold it over. Okay, basically, what we’re gonna be doing is making a log.
Rob: Okay.
Bryan: Okay, so now you got to fold it over to where you have a flap, a longer flap, and a shorter flap.
Rob: Okay.
Bryan: Okay, and turn it around towards us.
Rob: Butter log.
Bryan: Butter log.
Rob: I like the sound of that.
Bryan: You’ll gonna take your sheet pan.
Rob: Okay.
Bryan: And you’re gonna put it right up against the butter.
Rob: Okay.
Bryan: You’re gonna grab the top sheet, and you’re gonna pull it to get it kinda tight.
Rob: Okay.
Bryan: Okay, then you’re gonna grab the bottom sheet and basically you’re just gonna hold the bottome sheet while you push the pan.
Rob: Hey.
Bryan: Okay, and it’s gonna form into a log.
Rob: A much bigger one, yeah.
Bryan: Okay, so now, basically what we do, we have our butter log.
Rob: Yeah.
Bryan: We take this, and roll it up, wrap it in plastic wrap, put it in a freezer.
Rob: Are you?
Bryan: It’ll last for a month.
Rob: Alright, so, the a, the meat has been resting, the butter is ready to rock, we’re gonna go ahead and show you how to serve up the steak alone in the next segment coming up.