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# Steak with Bordelaise Sauce
- URL: https://eatlikeanadult.com/steak-with-bordelaise-sauce/
- Published: 2026-08-18T20:38:58.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-18T20:38:58.000Z
- Author: Russell Clamp

You can cook your steak in a pan however you normally cook it for this sauce. I've been cooking steak [Max Coen's](https://guide.michelin.com/gb/en/greater-london/london/restaurant/dorian?ref=eatlikeanadult.com) way for a few months now, so what better place to share than here. The hot rest: sear, rest in a warm oven, sear again, rest again. It's the most reliable route I've found to wall-to-wall pink, and once you've done it a couple of times you stop thinking about internal temperatures altogether. The final rest in the oven can be done long enough to keep it warm whilst you make the sauce. Even if you don't use the full steak cooking technique, you can use that final rest and keep warm in the oven part.

The sauce came from somewhere else. My wife and I had dinner at Brasserie Zédel in London earlier this year, both ordered the steak Bordelaise, and both went quiet in the way you do when something is properly good. She made me promise I'd make one as good at home. I'd like to think I've got there.

Bordelaise is red wine, shallots, stock and bone marrow. Nothing else, really. OK. and butter. The marrow goes in off the heat at the end and gives the sauce a gloss and a body that no amount of cream would get you. It's a weeknight sauce dressed as a restaurant one.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c8/de/c8dec2b5-3b9d-4556-a66b-3bf22da70105/content/images/2026/08/Steak-Bordelaise--3.png)

### Before you start

- **Bone marrow:** Ask your butcher for canoe-cut bones and scrape the marrow out raw. Pushing it through a fine sieve is optional, but it gives you a smoother finish since there's always a little piece of fibrous material in there. It can be picked out of the sauce before you serve it too.
- **Wine:** You don't need a top-end Bordeaux, but you do need a wine you'd drink. It reduces down to almost nothing, so any harshness gets concentrated along with everything else.
- **Vinegar:** 70ml looks like a lot. It isn't. It cooks down to a jammy base and cuts straight through the fat of the marrow.
- **Thermometer:** Not essential, but I'd recommend one. With the hot rest you're looking for the low 40s after the first sear, and it's useful to know rather than guess. I'm assuming you want your sirloin medium rare.
- **Timing:** The steaks sit happily in a 50°C oven while you make the sauce, so don't rush the reductions. The sauce is the part that needs your attention.

**Serves 2**

### Ingredients

- 2 × 200g sirloin steaks (or 1 × 400g steak), tempered to room temperature for 1-2 hours
- Fine sea salt, for seasoning
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Cooking fat of choice, I use tallow

**For the sauce**

- 2 banana shallots, finely sliced
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter
- 2 canoes bone marrow, scraped raw from the bone and optionally pushed through a fine sieve
- 70ml red wine vinegar
- 250ml Bordeaux or other dry red wine
- 250ml good-quality beef or veal stock
- 10g flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped

### Method

**Step 1: Prepare the steaks**

1. Take the steaks out of the fridge 2 hours before cooking and let them come to room temperature.
2. Preheat your oven, or toaster oven, to 70°C (160°F).
3. Salt the steaks right before they hit the pan. Any earlier and you'll draw out surface moisture, which is the enemy of a crust.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c8/de/c8dec2b5-3b9d-4556-a66b-3bf22da70105/content/images/2026/08/Steak-Bordelaise--4.png)

**Step 2: Sear and hot rest**

1. Set a pan over medium heat and add your cooking fat.
2. Cook the steaks for 2 to 3 minutes, turning every 20 to 30 seconds, until a decent brown crust has developed. If you're probing, you should be around the low 40°C.
3. Transfer to a small resting/baking tray with a wire rack and rest in the oven at 70°C for 10 minutes.
4. Return the steaks to the hot pan for 30 seconds to 1 minute to push the crust further. Then back to the oven, dropped now to 50°C, to rest and stay warm while you make the sauce. To get truly wall to wall pink don't overdo this second round in the pan. Ideally don't let the steak over 52°C (126°F).

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c8/de/c8dec2b5-3b9d-4556-a66b-3bf22da70105/content/images/2026/08/Steak-Bordelaise--7.png)

**Step 3: Start the sauce**

1. Keep the pan drippings (the gubbins). Set the pan over low to medium-low heat and add the shallots, a little of the bone marrow, some of the butter, salt and pepper.
2. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 to 7 minutes, until the shallots have a little bit of colour and starting to soften.
3. Add the red wine vinegar and cook down until jammy.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c8/de/c8dec2b5-3b9d-4556-a66b-3bf22da70105/content/images/2026/08/Steak-Bordelaise--1.png)

**Step 4: Reduce**

1. Add the red wine, turn the heat to high and reduce rapidly for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. You want it reduced to at least half, and a spoon dragged across the base should leave a clear trace.
2. Add the stock and reduce over medium-high heat for 5 to 7 minutes, until it's down by roughly half again and lightly coats the back of a spoon.
3. Turn the heat to low.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c8/de/c8dec2b5-3b9d-4556-a66b-3bf22da70105/content/images/2026/08/Bone-Marrow.png)

**Step 5: Finish**

1. Add the remaining bone marrow and butter. Swirl and move the pan constantly until both have melted and emulsified into the sauce, about a minute. I like to have the bone marrow melt about 80%, so you get the velvety unctuousness whilst maintaining some of those marrow pieces for flavour bursts. I do also think the sauce looks nicer with them.
2. Off the heat, stir in the parsley.
3. Taste and adjust for salt. Serve immediately.

**Storage:** Leftover sauce keeps in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. Reheat gently in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring to bring it back together. The steaks are best eaten fresh.

## How to Make Bordelaise Sauce

### Final thoughts

What makes this work is restraint at both ends. The steak gets left alone in a warm oven for longer than feels necessary, and the sauce gets reduced further than feels necessary, twice. Neither stage rewards impatience. What you end up with is a sauce that's glossy and deep without a drop of cream in it, and a steak that's the same colour edge to edge. It's a Saturday night dish that will leave you and your love smiling.

Enjoy!

Russell