DEAR ACCIDENTAL CHEF: I have a wonderful recipe for steak au poive that I have been dying to make. However, it calls for the addition of 1/3 cup brandy when making the pan sauce. I've never really cooked with alcohol before, and the few times I've watched chefs use it on television, flames shot up out of the pan. Is adding alcohol to this dish necessary, and if so, how can I avoid burning down the house? -- Fire Starter in Petersburg

DEAR FIRE STARTER: I can't help but recall my dear husband's oohs and ahs as he took his first bite of my steak au poive. The outside of the steak was expertly charred, with just the right bits of crunchy peppercorns while the center was a soft medium-rare. By some miracle, I had actually mastered a near perfect pan sauce made from brandy, meat drippings and butter, and I was happy.

As I refilled his wine glass, I felt calm in that moment, since at the time, this particular dish was totally new to me. As dear husband sopped up the last bit of leftover sauce with a piece of crusty bread and continued his moaning, I felt proud, and perhaps even a bit smug that I was able to pull off this classic, elegant dish.

Rewind 15 minutes earlier.

I'm in a complete state of panic. My steaks are searing in the pan, but it appears that my pan is too hot -- way too hot, and I haven't even gotten to the part of the recipe where I add the brandy to make the sauce. I can smell my peppercorns burning, and I'm getting spatter burns from the melted fat. To top it all off, the entire kitchen is filled with smoke.

I turn down the heat, add the brandy, and then with careful attention, I stand back and light the mixture with a long-handled lighter. "Whoosh!" A massive fireball nearly burns off my eyelashes and rises about a foot into the air. I check the ceiling for burn marks, and then shake the pan vigorously, trying to dissipate the flames before I sear off some other body part.

In a matter of seconds, it's over. I'm shaking and sweating as dear husband comes running in convinced I've actually burned a portion of the kitchen.

From that moment on, even though the end product of such a display of culinary mastery is entertaining, I made a firm decision, that no matter how amazingly cheflike it is to set your pan sauces on fire, I'm never doing it again. Not in this house.

Luckily, there is another way to achieve a great pan sauce while still keeping your eyebrows. It's called reduction.

For certain dishes, such as the steak au poive, steak Diane (made with Madeira and Dijon mustard) or even chicken Provencal (made with tomatoes, olives and wine), some form of alcohol is inherent to the recipe, and the most important thing to remember when cooking with any spirit or wine is to cook off much of the alcohol.

No one wants to taste a mouthful of cognac with their meat, so reducing becomes imperative. Lighting a pan sauce on fire is one way to reduce the alcohol flavor while still retaining the essence of the spirit added.

Another, much safer, way is to let your sauce reduce the old-fashioned way through evaporation. Once you've added your spirit and other liquids, crank up the heat a bit, leave your pan uncovered and let the science of evaporation do its job. After about 10-12 minutes (depending on how much liquid was in the pan to begin with) your sauce should be thickened and reduced by about half. The process is essentially the same as lighting your spirit on fire, it just takes a bit longer.

In terms of substitutions for spirits, there are certainly several options, although don't expect your dish to taste exactly like the one you had at Chez Pierre. For wine, you can use wine vinegars diluted with water or stock. For spirits, using a teaspoon of extract is acceptable or you can just double up on the stock or broth, which will intensify the flavor.

So, the next time you decide to whip up a saucy steak, think twice before grabbing the lighter because some dishes taste just as good without the burn.

Kendra Bailey Morris is a Richmond-based food writer, culinary instructor and author of "White Trash Gatherings: From-Scratch Cooking for Down-Home Entertaining" (Ten Speed Press). Send ideas, tips or culinary questions to info@theaccidentalchef.net or visit www.theaccidentalchef.net.