Steak Bordelaise Institut Paul Bocuse

The ‘Pope of Gastronomy’ needs little introduction. In his day, Paul Bocuse presided over multiple Michelin-starred restaurants, an international culinary school and most of Lyon. As far as France went, he was ‘God.’ It must have been somebody else who demoted him to Pope. 

One of the accessible outputs of the Bocuse empire is the book known as Institut Paul Bocuse Gastronomique (IPBG). This book contains a lot of the fundamental knowledge that underpins French cookery. Among the instructive are methods for cooking a steak and making the classic Bordelaise sauce. 

Unsurprisingly, Bordelaise sauce comes from Bordeaux, where the critical ingredient of wine is made. Some might say that sauciers were encouraged to promote a side hustle that involved reducing large quantities of local wine into tiny, spoon-coating syrups that would make a sauce for two people max. But that would be disingenuous. 

Here we take two recipes from the IPBG book and give you a great Saturday night in.

We served ours with roasted new potatoes (as it was summer) and we added a side of braised lettuce, which is available in our Little Black Book under L.

This recipe uses demi glace. You can buy that in or make it per our recipe.

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Steak Bordelaise Institut Paul Bocuse

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By Paul Bocuse – Serves: 2

Cooking Time: 20 mins

Ingredients

• For the Bordelaise sauce:
• 60g butter
• 2 shallots, chopped
• 200ml red wine
• 1 sprig thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• 200ml demi glace (see article above)
• 2 tbsp bone marrow, cooked (see notes)
• 1 tbsp parsley, chopped
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• For the steak:
• 30g butter
• 30ml vegetable oil or beef dripping
• 2 nice steaks, about a thumb-width thick
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

For the sauce:

1

Sauté the shallots in half the butter until softened but not coloured. Add the wine, thyme and bay, and reduce until nearly all the liquid is gone. Add the demi glace and reduce to coating consistency. Strain the sauce. This is a good mise en place. You can stop here and finish later.

For the steaks:

2

Season the steaks thoroughly on both sides (see notes).

3

Melt all the fats on high until foaming.

4

Fry the steaks on one side until crusted. Turn the steaks over and cook again until the desired doneness is reached. Use the 'thumb method' to work that out. Set aside to rest on a board for 10 mins.

To finish the sauce:

5

Whisk in the marrow and remaining butter. Add some chopped parsley.

To serve:

6

Pool the sauce onto a plate place the steak on top, either sliced or not.

Notes

Institut Paul Bocuse says to season the steaks while cooking, but this makes little sense. You are welcome to try. For cooked bone marrow, the easiest way obtain this is to roast some bone marrow bones until cooked, and then fish out the marrow with any available tools.