Top Roast Sirloin with Seared & Crusted Mixed Peppercorns
(You can prepare with or without peppercorns)
- Kosher salt
- 1 cup of cracked mixed peppercorns
I used a personal mix of whole Tellicherry, black, pink, Szechuan and green, with a little coriander and allspice. Use whatever peppercorns you prefer.
Crack them with a mortar and pestle, the bottom of a cast iron pan or a meat mallet. You only need enough to coat one side of the roast. The key is not to crush the peppercorns as that will make it too peppery. If they are cracked, you’ll have a mild pepper flavor.
Pull the roast out of the refrigerator one hour before cooking (if feasible, not necessary but helpful)
Pat dry with a paper towel and salt.
Before crusting with the cracked pepper again dry it off, this will help the pepper to stick.
Salt it again and press the roast firmly into the cracked peppercorns to coat only one side of the roast.
In a hot skillet at medium high. Pour a small amount of oil in the pan just enough to coat the bottom. Sear the no pepper coated side first. This will allow more fond to form in the pan and increase the flavor of the sauce.
The term ‘fond’ refers to the caramelized bits left in the bottom of a pan after you’ve browned meat or vegetables. Heat changes proteins and carbohydrates in ways that make them fall apart and regroup in browned, flavorful bits. When you sear a steak, you are creating a flavorful crust on the meat itself via a process called the Maillard reaction: the breaking down of the protein. So, while creating flavor in the pan with fond you are also looking to create flavor in the roast with the ‘Maillard reaction’.
Once you see the edges of the steak starting to brown it’s time to flip. You only flip the steak once. You don’t want to move it around anymore than necessary. It might need a little more oil in the pan when you flip.
Now for the pepper side you are only looking to sear long enough for the pepper to adhere to the meat. Anything more and the pepper will burn.
Reduce the heat to medium once seared.
Remove the roast and place on a sheet pan in a preheated oven 325°F oven for about 20 minutes to 130° medium. I really enjoy this roast above 125° for my personal preference.
I shoot for 135-140°F, so I pull it out of the oven at 130-135°F and let rest for 15 minutes before slicing.
Now for the sauce – once the roast is in the oven, turn the heat on the pan to medium high and melt the butter. Once the butter is melted, sauté the onion and garlic. Once the onions are translucent deglaze with the bourbon and light the bourbon (flambeau – feel like a fancy chef).
Recommend you turn the stove off before lighting the bourbon.
When the flames die down, you know the alcohol has burned off and its time to add the cream and thyme. Reduce on low until nice and thick. Salt to taste and enjoy.
Check the roast, remove, and let rest for 5-10 minutes. Sliced and add the sauce or serve the sauce on the side.
Bourbon Cream Sauce
Ingredients:
- Same pan as the seared roast
- 1 cup julienne onions
- 4 garlic cloves thinly sliced
- 1 tbsp. chopped fresh thyme
- 4 oz. bourbon
- 6 oz. cream
- 3 oz. butter
- Salt to taste
Watch Our Live Chef Demo
View Full Video Transcript
Christian: Hello, everybody. Thanks for coming to Champ’s Kitchen. I’m Christian and today, we’re going to show you how to prepare our Top Sirloin Roast. This comes from our top butt – product of Dean and Peeler Premium Beef – South Texas fed and finished, the best beef I’ve ever had. I know that you’ll feel the same way. Come try it. Chef Matt’s going to be showing you how to prepare this here in just a second and this Friday, he’ll be doing another demonstration at our wine tasting.
So, come on down and see us. It starts at four thirty. And if you come, you can enter to win a bottle of wine plus a Top Sirloin Roast and one of our signature sides. So, it’ll be a lot of fun. That’s on the nineteenth January.
And with that, I’d like to introduce our consulting chef, Chef Matt Axtell.
Matt: Thank you, Christian.
How are we doing, guys? So, I’m Chef Matt from Port A here and help here and so, Christian’s got me this great Top Sirloin Roast. I went ahead and pre-salted it. This roast comes in a one-pack untied and unseasoned and then a two-pack seasoned as well.
Christian: So, this is how it looks. The Top Sirloin Roast is $13.95 a pound and so you’re looking at about $30 for this piece.
Matt:
That’s a good five, six person roast right there. Absolutely feed a whole family and maybe a neighbor if you like em.
Absolutely. So, the reason I pre salted it, it allows that salt to get in there and I’m going to pepper it with a mix of crushed peppercorns. The reason I chose Au Poivre – in my mind, it’s extremely classical French and it’s a fillet presentation and to me, this cooks up and a lot like a fillet.
It’s not quite as tender but it’s going to have a little more flavor in it and you can do a lot of the same preparation whether it’s grilling, roasting, or however. So, that’s why I picked off just because to me, when you think a classical steak, I mean, that’s it.
So, head over here. I got a hot pan. Now, just doing a pepper mix here. A good little green, little pink.
I’m going to do just one side.
Press really hard.
Try to get all that pepper stuck to the meat. Now, I went ahead and dried this off right before we started because it’ll stick to a dry steak better than a wet one and hold on there. So, now I got my pans screaming hot.
So, we’re cooking a little Top Sirloin Au Poivre. So, Now, I’m going to get the oil out here.
With unpepper side first. That’ll allow a little fond, little flavor in there.
So, we’re here at Champs Meat Market. Everhart and SPID.
We’re going to finish with a bourbon sauce. A little bourbon reduction, some cream, some onions, some garlic. It’s really nice. So gonna let that sear really good. And I’m going to kind of watch. See if we can get it good. I’m going to look at the edge of the steak, there and watch it come up and once it starts coming up, then, I’ve got a good sear on the bottom of it. This is kind of like cooking scallops. You just, you set it and just let it sit. You don’t want to move it around and keep shaking it or anything like that. I’m just going to flip it once and that’s going to be it.
Now, this is a absolutely beautiful piece of meat here.
This one here, I mean, this is, I guess I got six kids, three kids, and nana and this would feed all six of us for dinner. So, it. Make it some oil in the bottom there.
Oh, look at that.
And then when I flip it on the pepper side, I’m going to kind of push it down a little bit. Try to get an even coat and then I’m not going to shake it but I’m going to get some oil hitting all sides of it there.
Now, on this side here, you’re not cooking the steak. What you want to do is sear it just to the point where the peppercorns adhere to the steak. So, that’s kind of what you’re going here. If you’re trying to cook the steak here in this in this thing, then, Well, then you’re going to burn the pepper before you get there.
About this time here, I am going to start to turn down the heat because when I put the butter in for the sauce, I don’t want to I don’t want to scorch the butter, but the pan is going to hold pretty good heat. So, now I’m going up medium and then I’ve got I’ve got a preheated oven at 350 right now. I’m going to sear it. I’m going to do about twenty, 25 minutes will get you to about one twenty, 120F, for rare to medium-rare.
If you want medium, go up to 130F and what you do, 127F maybe. You want to allow for roast this size, maybe five, 6° of continuous cooking. Like, once you pull it out, it’s going to keep cooking. You know, the heat in, it’s going to keep going. So, while it rests, it’s going to go up. So, you want to you want to go underneath a little bit there. You know, mid well, you’re looking at 140, 145 for medium well. You know, and it’s going to it’s going to go up in the 150 range.
When you pull out 150, then it’s going to go all the way to well done and you know, this if you’re taking it all the way to well done, I’m going to shed a tear, but you know, you’re 45, 50 minutes. So, and too, this is another good roast for you if you do like you know, medium well, well-done, medium plus. It’s not going to dry out as much as like a fillet will. It’s going to hold that extra cook time a little bit better.
So, pull it out here.
Alright, I’m going to slide this in the oven and let that cook there.
Now, here I’ve got about three ounces of butter.
Here adding onion and garlic and I think traditionally, you’d use shallots for this. I really like some sliced onion in on my steak in my sauce. I like, I like the flavor and the texture. So, go here and then out of the way here. So, we got a little bit of time. We’re going to put in and then, some bourbon. So, instead of doing cognac, you know, we’re in the south. We’re doing a little bourbon. Now, we got there. Now, whenever you like whenever you add liquor or anything that’s going to flame on the stove, always turn the flame off. I don’t want to blow up the bottle of wine or the bottle of liquor.
Now, you can turn it on and when you have flames, you’re cooking off the alcohol. Once the flames go, pretty much, you know, the alcohol is gone at that point in time. So, I’m just letting it burn off and then at that point in time, where I had the cream, about 10 – 12 ounces of cream.
I’ve got one here that we seared up for beautiful. Nice little pepper crust.
This has been in the oven about 35 minutes. So, pull that over here. The cream, there is room temperature or been out for a little bit.
So, I like to bring up the steak to room temperatures as well before I cook it.
This is the Top Sirloin Roast pepper crusted, and then little bourbon cream sauce to finish it off.
This will roast for about 35 minutes. So, it’s going to be a good medium there.
Christian: I just want to add guys. Please come see us on Friday. It’s going to be a lot of fun.
Uh come with an appetite, come with a thirst. Uh we’re going to be you know, doing our regular wine pairing with our sommelier Corey Zamora and our consulting chef Matt here.
He’ll be preparing this where you can try it together. You can try it independently and remember if you show up, you’ll be able to enter to win this meal, you can take it home and prepare it and look back and see how did it and try your hand at it or do it however you want to, and we appreciate your time.
