Triple Pepper Crusted Steak

With food costs at an all-time high right now, I've been cooking at home more often. This can be challenging especially because I love eating out. So I try to bring restaurant-quality meals to my own kitchen. Take this triple pepper crusted steak for example. Instead of cooking up a quick beef stir fry, I paired a juicy seasoned steak with a caramelized shallot black bean vinaigrette, pickled cucumbers, and all the fresh herbs. Now this is a meal that makes eating at home much more exciting.

Recipe

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Triple Pepper Crusted Steak

Total Time1 hour hr 30 minutes mins

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Asian

Keyword: beef

Servings: 4

Author: Christine Ma

Ingredients

Pickled cucumbers

• ¼ cup mirin
• ¼ cup rice vinegar
• ¼ cup lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
• 2 Persian cucumbers sliced ¼-inch thick
• 1 Fresno chile sliced ¼-inch thick

Triple pepper crusted steak

• ½ tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
• ½ tablespoon ground white pepper
• ½ tablespoon ground Szechuan pepper
• salt
• 1 lb 1 ½-2 inch thick rib eye steaks

Caramelized shallot black bean sauce

• ¾ cup plus 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 6 shallots thinly sliced
• 1 ½ teaspoons minced garlic
• 1 ½ teaspoons minced ginger
• 5 tablespoons fermented black beans
• ½ cup cilantro
• 6 tablespoons rice vinegar
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil

Remaining ingredients

• 6 lettuce leaves such as red leaf lettuce or romaine
• 2 tablespoons fresh mint
• 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Place a wire rack on a baking sheet.
• Make pickled cucumbers. Pour mirin into a small pot and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Remove from heat and add rice vinegar, lemon juice, and sugar. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Pour liquid over sliced cucumbers and fresno and let sit for at least 30 minutes or overnight.
• Combine coarsley ground black pepper, ground white pepper, and ground Szechuan pepper in a small bowl. Season steak with peppercorn mixture and salt on both sides. Let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.
• Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add sliced shallots and season with salt. Cook until deep golden brown and caramelized, stirring occasionally, about 20-25 minutes. If the pan becomes too dry, add 1-2 tablespoons of water.
• Add garlic, ginger, and black beans to pan. Saute for 1 minute or until aromatic. Remove from heat and transfer to a blender along with cilantro, rice vinegar, honey, soy sauce, and sesame oil. While the blender is running, slowly add olive oil until well combined. Set aside.
• Place steak on prepared baking sheet with wire rack. Roast in oven for 15-25 minutes or until desired degree of doneness. Cook steak until 90-95 degrees for medium-rare and 100-105 degrees for medium. Remove from heat. Brush caramelized shallot black bean sauce on both sides of steaks.
• Heat 1 tablespoon oil a cast iron pan over medium-high heat. Lay steak in pan and sear for 2 minutes or until browned. Flip over and sear for another 1-2 minutes or until browned. Remove from heat and slice steak across the grain.
• Lay lettuce leaves on serving plater and arrange sliced steak on top. Top with fresh mint and cilantro and serve with pickled cucumbers and extra caramelized shallot black bean sauce on the side.

Watch how to make this:

**Helpful tips and common mistakes

As much as I love a steak seasoned with just salt and pepper, I wanted to try something different. Inspired by Chinese ingredients, I decided to crust the beef in three different peppercorns, black, white, and Szechuan. Take that triple pepper crusted steak and pair it with a caramelized shallot black bean sauce and it's game over.

The caramelized black bean sauce is the main flavor component of this dish. To make the sauce, first, caramelize shallots. Properly caramelized shallots take time and patience, but the end result is fabulous.

Saute thinly sliced shallots in a saute pan over medium heat. Season the shallots with salt right at the beginning to help them brown more evenly. Stir the pan occasionally and add a splash of water if the pan gets too dry. About 25 minutes later, the shallots should be deeply golden brown.

Add ginger, garlic, and fermented black beans to the pan and saute for another minute.

What are fermented black beans? They're black soybeans that have been fermented and taste very salty, a little bitter, and slightly sweet. You should be able to find them in almost any Asian market.

Take that gorgeous shallot black bean mixture and blend it up with cilantro, rice vinegar, honey, soy sauce, and sesame oil. While the blender is running, slowly add the olive oil until completely smooth. Feel free to make the sauce the day before.

Now that the sauce is done, let's move on to the steak itself. I chose ribeye for my meal but you can use any other tender cut of beef. You can also swap out the beef completely and use pork loin or even tofu.

Whenever I cook steak, I always use the reverse sear method. Why? Because the steak comes out perfectly every single time.

Season the steak with the pepper blend and let it sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. Then, pop the beef into the oven at a low temperature of 275 degrees F. Check the temperature of the rib eye after 15 minutes. For medium-rare, you want the temperature between 90-95 degrees F.

Remove the steak from the oven and brush the caramelized shallot and black bean sauce on both sides.

Next, heat a cast iron pan until it's smoking hot and sear the triple pepper crusted steak until beautifully browned on both sides.

Since we used the reverse sear method, you don't have to rest the beef after it's done. Just slice and serve!

To give this dish a true restaurant quality feel, serve the steak on a bed of lettuce and top it with fresh cilantro and mint. Serve it with extra sauce on the side and pickled cucumbers.

The triple crusted pepper steak is great on its own but the caramelized shallot black bean sauce is the true star. It checks off all the boxes, sweet, tangy, and salty all in one. Thank goodness this recipe makes a generous batch of the sauce because I'll be using it for more dishes!

For more steak recipes check out this blackened steak taco with blood orange salsa recipe!