Sous Vide Steak - What to do about pan sauces?

I've been doing steak sous vide for a few months now and loving it. My only question/problem is with regards to making a classic pan sauce from drippings. Since there are no delicious brown bits as a result of searing or roasting in a pan, are there any suggestions as to how to adapt a classic pan sauce to get around this? There's a peppercorn whiskey sauce I'd like to do, but it involves pan drippings, just trying to figure out how to approach that.

-Sky

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Manfred_18311

For one, you could

make a beef stock and reduce it, portioned it and save it for your various SV proposes.

jason.r.whitworth

Are you not searing the meat at all?

Chefsteps videos call for a pre and post sear where there would probably be some fond.

Sky_16161

Well I've been searing with a blowtorch, I suppose I could sear in a pan, or do as Manfred suggests and reduce some stock.

jason.r.whitworth

Ah i see. Depending on the cut of steak you could trim some fat and gristle off dice it up thin and just brown that in a pan. I believe some people use the bag juices from the sous vide steak.

Manfred_18311

Extracting

fat won’t give any substantial base for a good sauce; a reduced basic stock opens

various directions to work with.

Brendan_Lee_56950

I like to pre-sear to get some fond in the pan but I also like to take trimmings and cook the shit out of them, to the point where they are bordering on burnt and that gives some nice fond but I also bag that scrap with the steak to add more flavor and it typically will spill its juice in the bag because it was so overcooked and I then use that to reinforce some stock for a pan sauce.

Johan_Edstrom_5586

Invest the time to make real stock or demi, I usually roast the living daylights out of bones, onions, shrooms, celery and garlic once a week, toss em in the pressure cooker for an hour or two, then skim, add some liquid to make up for the fat, reduce about as far as you want to

and you have sauce base that is plain awesome.