Crush the pepper using a rolling pin or mortar and pestle, if you do not have either of those you can use the back of a frying pan. Dice the shallots if using into small pieces.

It is best to use a large frying pan to cook sauce because it makes reducing it so much quick due to the larger surface area.

In your frying pan add the butter and oil, using a lot to medium heat add your crushed peppercorns and diced shallots, saute for a couple of minutes, add the Brandy and flambe.

Add the beef stock and simmer to reduce, once you have reduced by hal add the cream, stir in well and allow to simmer to reduce to your prefered thickness.

Tip – I do like the sauce to be a little darker than it can often be, the cream will make it very light brown or even white as you see in the little pic above, sometimes the stock will solve that and make it a little darker, if not I will often add 1 tspn of dark soy sauce, it hardly impacts the taste at all but will make it look darker.