Chef Stephanie Bonnin is taking on our T-bone steak challenge by transforming an ordinary cut of meat from the deli counter into a complete meal inspired by her Colombian roots. Watch as she seasons and sears her steak to perfection in a cast-iron skillet, before basting it in garlic butter and finishing it in the oven. She pairs her buttery, flavorful steak with crispy papas criollas — a traditional Colombian dish that's commonly served with carne asada — and a side of avocado salsa to round it all out.
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00:00I've done this so many times, but I've never done it on camera, so that's the difference.
00:06So I have the peer pressure right now.
00:20Oh wow, a Flintstone steak.
00:23Yeah, I grew up with this, that's the beautiful thing.
00:25I grew up in Colombia, so I will see these guys in cartoons.
00:29I'm gonna cook this T-Bone steak with some papas criollas and avocado sauce.
00:35Made with avocado, with tomatoes, with peppers, actually this pepper is from my garden.
00:40And that's really exciting, because when the peppers start showing up, that means that
00:44the summer has started.
00:46This T-Bone steak will go really nice with this gelada, because this gelada has some
00:51tomato, lime juice, so pretty summery.
00:55You know, will go really, really nice with this steak, the thing that is a perfect fit.
01:00Usually when you buy these pieces of meat, they give you like wrapped in voucher paper.
01:05I like to remove it from there and put it in a resting rack the day before to air dry.
01:10That will help us to create a beautiful and perfect roast.
01:13A piece of meat as thick as this, we have to put a lot of salt, but I like the simple
01:19way that Basque people do their chuletones.
01:23All by now.
01:25Now we're gonna put some oil, just a little bit.
01:28We have to make sure that this pan is really, really, really, really hot, because if it's
01:34not hot, we are not producing the beautiful sear that we want.
01:39But personally for me, after living in San Sebastian, Spain, where my family, my in-law
01:44family is, is how their food is so simple, because they respect the product.
01:51So when you have such an amazing product, you don't need anything else, you just need
01:54salt.
01:55A really, really good salt.
02:00When the crust is forming, the most important thing is just to leave it as is.
02:05I would say maybe three to five minutes, no more than that.
02:08Cooking with me, the right way to learn is with your intuition.
02:11You know, using your senses.
02:13How things smell, how things sound, you know, how things feel.
02:17Okay guys, I'm ready to flip.
02:20Okay, so now we're gonna check, and to see, you can see this.
02:27So now we're gonna do it again, on this side.
02:33That's what I'm looking for, this beautiful sear, this beautiful melliard reaction on
02:39the meat that actually also is flavor.
02:42That's flavor.
02:43Yes, that's what I want, that it looks sexy, yeah.
02:46Yeah, yeah.
02:48That's me being an OCD with cleaning.
02:51So we put like a spoon of ghee.
02:55Garlic.
03:02So I think that for this piece of meat, I'm not gonna do more than 10 minutes on the oven.
03:08So now what we're gonna do is we're gonna take this beautiful piece of meat, and we're
03:12gonna put it on the oven to finish cooking.
03:16Okay, so now the next step is to cook our papas criollas.
03:20Papas criollas are really important for the Colombian identity.
03:23I don't know if you know, but you know, potatoes are from South America, from Los Andes, and
03:29these potatoes are really important for us because when you go to a piqueteadero, or
03:33you make ajiaco, those are the potatoes that we use.
03:36Unfortunately, we can find them fresh in the United States, but we can source them frozen
03:42from many different Latin American retails.
03:47I'm gonna put them here on a cheap tray, and I'm gonna cook them in the oven.
03:53I'm gonna put some olive oil, and then I'm gonna cook them in the oven.
03:57The flavor profile is a little bit more buttery, grainy.
04:02They're so yummy.
04:03I mean, as soon as you try a yellow potato or papa criolla, it's not way back, people.
04:08I'm sorry.
04:13It sounds like soundbite, afrovitas.
04:18So now we're gonna make our avocado sauce.
04:20There is no recipe for that.
04:21The way that I do them is with whatever fresh yummy that I have on my fridge.
04:27Onions, some cilantro, some lime juice.
04:32I like a lot of lime on my salsas.
04:35If you don't eat cilantro, you can use any herb, like parsley works too.
04:40There is some Cuban peppers that I grow in my garden.
04:44Those are not spicy at all.
04:46They're yummy.
04:47And then I'm gonna add a little bit of serrano to add a little bit of kick.
04:51But for me, this sauce has to be, like, fresh.
04:55I'm gonna do some garlic.
04:56I'm gonna cook this a little bit more smaller.
04:59The frozen avocados.
05:01When you make any sauce with avocado, you have to immediately eat it.
05:05I don't know the science behind that, but for this specific one,
05:08I can guarantee you that this salsa is not gonna become dark after a few days on the fridge.
05:14I can guarantee that.
05:15I'm Latina, you know, so everything that we do is just, like, garlic and onions and peppers.
05:23That's our flavor.
05:25Olive oil, salt.
05:32You don't want to keep this forever on the blender
05:36because you don't want them to heat up.
05:38It's cold, like a smoothie.
05:40You can imagine if I put this in a bowl, it starts getting dark.
05:44I mean, sometimes people say that the secret ingredient is love,
05:48and there's no anything more true than that.
05:50I think that we are energy, and believe it or not, you know,
05:55one time I was having this reflection, you know, about alchemia.
05:58That's the word in Spanish.
05:59It's when you have the power to transfer things in gold.
06:02It's a fact because cooking is the closest thing of that science, you know.
06:07We can transfer things.
06:09The energy always is right.
06:11I cannot cook anything for anybody if I'm not in the right mindset,
06:15so that's why I practice, like, reading.
06:17How can I bring myself in that mindset even though when I don't want to have to?
06:22Look how beautiful, green this salsa looks.
06:33Now we're gonna remove the potatoes.
06:35We're gonna use ghee again for the potatoes,
06:39so I'm gonna just put the potatoes here
06:43because I want them to give them some color in the cast iron.
06:46I'm speaking from my heart because that's the only language that I know.
06:49So now we put the salt.
06:51The whole idea of this is get a little bit of texture.
06:54It's not gonna be the same texture as we deep fry it,
06:56but it's gonna give a little bit of color and texture as well.
06:59They're gonna look like beautiful, chic, sexy.
07:03Hi, my name is Estefania, and this is my master class.
07:08So we're gonna cook close to the bone.
07:13As you can see, the meat is rested, still red, yummy.
07:18I'm going to flip this way for having better grip for me.
07:25We have this strip here.
07:29Don't serve anything that I don't serve.
07:31Don't serve anything that I don't try first.
07:36So now we have our T-bone steak cooked in the cast iron.
07:44I usually like to put some Maldon salt on top of things.
07:49So we put here the papas criollas,
07:51and that's the way that we eat carne asada in Colombia.
07:55And then I'm gonna put some of these, as you can see, still green.
07:59Avocado sauce with some cilantro on top.
08:04I'm gonna taste it, but to tell you the truth,
08:07that will be the most exciting part to taste.
08:13El huesito.
08:19If you haven't tried papas criollas, I encourage you to do it.
08:22You can make a puree with some chives too.
08:25They taste delicious with some butter.
08:28You get to try a little bit of a taste of Colombia too.
08:31Any piece of meat, in general, is really special
08:33because this is my language of love with my father-in-law.
08:37You know, they live in Ohio, and every time that I go to visit them,
08:40I choose a tomahawk, a T-bone, or a chuletona is the way that they call it.
08:45And that's the way that I show love to him.
08:47Good job, Steph.