Julia Child's Finishing Touch For Thick, Delicious Steak Sauce

One of the first ladies of television cooking, the late Julia Child remains an authoritative voice in Western cookery who still influences chefs and home cooks today. When it came to cooking steak, "The French Chef" star employed an easy finishing touch to create a thick, delicious sauce to top the meat. Child added butter to the cooking juices in the pan, a common French technique called Monter au Beurre ("mounting the sauce") that results in a quick, tasty adornment.

The trick, which Child said can be used with any type of thick steak, utilizes the beef's own juices and seasonings to flavor the sauce. Once the cut had been browned on the stovetop and then finished in the oven, Child moved it to a serving dish. The pan is then deglazed by adding some meat stock or red wine to the cooking juices (if more liquid is needed). After the juices have boiled down to a consistency that is almost like a syrup, the pan is removed from the heat, and a small amount of cold butter is added.

Child swirled the butter around in the hot juices and cautioned not to return the pan to the heat source. If the butter completely melts, the sauce won't thicken and emulsify. Done correctly, the fat gradually absorbs into the sauce, enriching it and uniting the ingredients. It's then ready to be poured over the steak and served, adding an exceptional final touch.

Monter au Beurre essentially means to finish a sauce with butter. With this technique, the sauce separating is a common pitfall, but an easy butter temperature fix to avoid a broken pan sauce is to ensure the fat is cold. While it wasn't a step Julia Child dud, some chefs take the extra measure of chilling the butter in the freezer for 30 minutes.  

Your own taste preferences should be your guide in adding seasonings and aromatics to your steak and sauce. Child used coarse salt and an Italian seasoning blend (advising that thyme is also an excellent choice). The famed chef also placed whole cloves of garlic directly into the pan before putting her steak into the oven to finish cooking. Before deglazing, she pressed down on the now fully-cooked cloves with a wooden spoon to release additional flavor into the juice. 

In place of the garlic, onions or shallots can be used. Mustard can also be added to the sauce as a emulsifier while the mixture is still on the stove, before incorporating the butter. This further bolsters the flavor while ensuring the sauce stays together — Dijon is a good choice (or whatever your favorite happens to be). With your steak exquisitely topped and ready to serve, try Julia Child's favorite soup, vichyssoise, as an appetizer or side on your dinner table. Julia Child's favorite dessert, floating island or île flottante, is also a natural choice for the sweet course of your meal. As the cooking star loved to say, "Bon appétit!"