Most steak sauce recipes start with a bottle. Ours starts with the pan you just cooked the steak in, which already has more flavour sitting in it than anything you’d pour out of a jar.
Why pan sauce beats bottled sauce
A bottled sauce is the same in every kitchen it’s opened in. A pan sauce is built from whatever’s stuck to the bottom of the pan after your specific steak just cooked in it, the fond, the rendered fat, all of it, which means it tastes like an extension of the meal rather than something added to it. It also takes about five minutes, uses the pan you were going to wash anyway, and doesn’t need anything you wouldn’t already have in the kitchen.
The drippings: what’s actually in the pan
Those dark, stuck-on bits left after a good sear are concentrated flavour, browning built up while the steak was cooking, and they’re the entire point of a pan sauce. A fattier cut like scotch fillet or wagyu leaves more of that behind, so the sauce needs less help. Something leaner like eye fillet leaves less, so butter and stock end up doing more of the work to build it back up.
Deglaze, reduce, finish
- Pour off most of the excess fat, leaving a thin film in the pan, and add a finely chopped shallot or garlic clove over medium heat for about thirty seconds.
- Deglaze with your liquid of choice, wine, stock, cream, scraping the base of the pan with a wooden spoon to lift the fond into the liquid.
- Let it simmer and reduce by roughly half, until it coats the back of a spoon rather than running off it.
- Take the pan off the heat and stir through a knob of cold butter until it’s glossy, then season and add any final herbs.
- Spoon it over the steak once it’s rested, not before, pouring sauce over a resting steak just steams the crust you worked to build.
Three ways to take it
Red wine and shallot is the classic, reduce red wine down hard with the shallot, mount with butter, finish with a little thyme if you’ve got it. It’s not far off our own red wine jus on the menu, just built in your own pan instead of a stockpot.
Cream and cracked pepper is heavier, and suits a cold night more than a summer one, bloom cracked pepper in the fat for a minute before deglazing, then reduce with cream instead of wine until it properly thickens.
Butter and herb is the one to reach for if you don’t want to open a bottle of wine for a sauce, garlic and whatever soft herbs are around, melted into the pan with a splash of stock or even water to lift the fond, finished with a squeeze of lemon.
On our menu
If you’d rather skip the pan altogether, Macelleria makes its own sauces in-house: French Brandy Jus, Mustard Sauce Supreme, Classic Gravy, Peppercorn Jus and Roasted Mushroom Gravy.
Which steaks it actually suits
Leaner cuts get the most out of a sauce, eye fillet and rump don’t carry much fat of their own, so a sauce fills in what’s missing. Wagyu or a well-marbled scotch fillet is a different case; the fat’s already doing the job a sauce would do, which is part of why we don’t bother saucing wagyu. Worth keeping in mind before building a sauce for a cut that doesn’t really need one.
If you’re not sure which cut suits a sauce and which is better left alone, that’s a fair question for the counter, it usually comes down to how much fat you’re already working with.
Macelleria Bondi · G09/180 Campbell Parade, Bondi Beach · Open 7 days · No bookings required
FAQs
What is the best sauce for steak? Depends on the cut and the night, red wine for something classic, cream and pepper for something heavier, butter and herb when you want it simple. None of them is the objectively “best” one.
How do you make a simple steak sauce? Deglaze the pan the steak was cooked in with wine, stock or cream, scraping up the browned bits, reduce it until it thickens slightly, then finish off the heat with a knob of butter.
Can you make steak sauce without wine? Yes, stock or even water will lift the fond just as well. The butter and herb version in this article doesn’t use wine at all.
What goes in a pan sauce for steak? The fond and fat left in the pan, an aromatic like shallot or garlic, a liquid to deglaze with, and butter stirred in at the end to bring it together.
