An historic dish...

Materials:

3.5 pounds (1.6 kgs) of beef tenderloin
Salt
Pepper
Garlic powder (optional)
Butter
Olive oil
Mushrooms

Method:

Preheat the oven to 400 F (204 C). Slice the mushroms and set aside. Cut off
the thin end of the tenderloin so that the fillet is more or less uniformly
thick and will just fit diagonally in a small, thick bottomed roasting tin.
Using a sharp knife, peel off the white muscular tissue. (Cut up the thin
end and white muscular tissue and feed them to your cats and dogs so they
will bless you and give you good Karma.)

Salt and pepper (and optionally garlic powder) the fillet (aka chateaubriand
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beef_tenderloin). Put the roasting tin on a
medium flame and put in the butter and olive oil. When the butter's foam
begins to subside, turn up the heat and sear the meat on all sides to get a
nice golden color. This will take about fifteen minutes. Quickly place the
tin in the middle of the preheated oven, close the door, and wait twenty
minutes. After twenty minutes, turn off the oven, remove the tin, and put
the fillet in a heat-proof dish just large enough to contain it. Put this
back in the oven but leave the door ajar. Put the roasting tin on the stove
on medium heat. Add the mushrooms and saute until very tender, about 10-15
minutes. When done, add the juices that have exuded from the meat and boil
down quickly until you have a sauce that will just coat a spoon.

Slice the meat thinly and serve, putting a dollop of sauce alongside each
serving.

Notes:

1. The timing gives you a roast that is medium rare.
2. This meat is SO tender you don't need a knife. You can cut it with a
fork.
3. This roast this day seduced my wife, who's not partial to red meat and
has never eaten medium-rare meat before in her life.
4. I learned how to do this today from a "How to boil water" episode. I
have no idea why it never occured to me before.
5. The mushrooms and sauce were my own idea.
--
Bob
http://www.kanyak.com

"Opinicus" > wrote in
:

> An historic dish...
>
> Materials:
>
> 3.5 pounds (1.6 kgs) of beef tenderloin
> Salt
> Pepper
> Garlic powder (optional)
> Butter
> Olive oil
> Mushrooms
>

Looks really good--I'll give it a try.

Reminds me of a recipe I have for tenderloin cooked on a plank. The main
differences are in not searing the meat first and making a sauce with
butter, mustard, a little Worcestershire and some brandy (light it and wait
for it to go out),and, finally, cream.

Mark.

--
While I'll admit that anyone can make a mistake once, to go on making
the same lethal errors century after century seems to me nothing short
of deliberate.--V.