Beef Tenderloin Two Ways
What do you do when you are in your local Lowes Foods and you find a $130 cut of grass fed beef tenderloin at 50% off? You buy that sucker, take it home and dry brine it!! Then you ask you dig through recipes, ask for advice and suggestions, and get to work. At least that is what yours truly did. I settled on steaks and Beef Wellington cooked a few days a part. Here is how that went.
I trimmed the silverskin from the tenderloin and cut it in half, the half that was smaller in diameter I placed in a vacuum sealable container, sprinkled it with kosher salt, sealed it up and put it in the fridge where it would spend the next 96 hours. We will come back to that.
The other half got the same treatment along with some rosemary and Pennsylvania Pepper however it went into a vacuum seal bag for 24 hours.
After the dry brine worked it magic it was time to do use take advantage of some modern conveniences, chiefly my Anova Precision Cooker, a sous vide machine, aka the hot tub time machine aka HTTM. The sealed bag went into the HTTM for 3 hours at 130F. When time was up I put the beef, still in the bag, in an ice bath, because strangely, my wife and daughter seemed to be taking a long time 'shopping'. No matter. A quick ice bath and then into the fridge to hold. When I received the text that they were on their way home I started the Kingsford and prepped the Weber. Thirty minutes later the ladies walked in, the grill was hot and I started to slice the tenderloin into steaks and give them a healthy dose of Oakridge BBQs Santa Maria Steak Rub. I made sure to save the drippings to make gravy with later in the week. Here is what they looked like before going on the grill.
I walked out the door saying, dinner will be served in six minutes. Please finish the salad", and headed out to the Weber. I use my GrillGrates with the flat side over the SlowNSear and the raised grill mark side on the indirect heat side of the Weber. This gives me a consistent sear across the meat, grill marks are pretty, but they aren't giving you as much flavor as you deserve. Trust me on this. Bam, I was back inside carrying a plate full of what would be the most tender steaks I have ever eaten. I have had $100 plates of ribeye and porterhouse and some of America's top steak houses. I killed them, this beef was top notch. Steak and salad no need for taters that night.
And fast forward to Saturday...Remember that other half of the tenderloin we left to dry brine so long? It is time to bring it out. Note the difference in color in the before and after pictures.
Now it was time to put a generous coat of fresh ground Pennsylvania Pepper, rosemary, and a sprinkle of Santa Maria Steak Rub on and vacuum seal this beast. It went into the HTTM at 130F for 3 hours as well. When it came out I added the drippings to those I reserved from the steaks earlier in the week, plucked the larger bits of rosemary off the beef, and gave the tenderloin a quick sear in olive oil in a pan. I pulled the steak out and immediately brushed it with a stone ground mustard that had a touch of horseradish in it. Next it was time to wrap the tenderloin with prosciutto, Gordon Ramsey's recipe called for Parma Ham but we did not find any so we sent in a sub. I laid the prosciutto down, ground some PA pepper over it and wrapped it tightly around the beef, sealing it. It went into the fridge to set. While the beef set I worked on the mushroom stuffing, 8 ounces of regular button mushrooms and 8 ounces of baby portobellos went into a food processor with salt, PA Pepper, turmeric, thyme, and celery seed. Then the mushroom mix went into a pan to get as much water out as possible. I set the mushroom mix aside to cool in a container raising one end so that any remaining water would drain to the end. It was time to pull out the puff pastry. As it turned out, I had just enough pastry to cover the beef (lesson learned). I laid out the pastry dough, spread the mushroom mixture on it evenly and wrapped it tightly around the tenderloin making sure to seal the ends tight. Then it went into the refrigerator to set until it was closer to dinner time. I took the drippings from searing, added the reserved drippings from the HTTM cooks, added water, worcestershire, salt and beef stock and whisked in some flour along with some red wine. I also had some leftover mushroom mix so I added that as well. Once those ingredients had married but not yet thickened, I put it all in a blender to smooth out the texture. I vacuumed sealed corn on the cob with tarragon and butter and set the HTTM to 184F. I turned the oven to 420F. When they both reached temperature the wellington received an egg yolk wash and generous dusting of sea salt and it went into the oven. The corn went into the HTTM. The corn came out 30 minutes later and went into a pan to be seared, caramelizing the sugars in the corn and making it the perfect bite. After the corn finished (five minutes) the wellington was ready and it was time to serve dinner at the table for a proper family meal.
Big Bob Gibson's White Barbecue Sauce
As shown in the watermark this photo is the intellectual and real property of Richard and all credit goes to him. The picture can be found on this site.
Prepare to amaze your friends and family. A hint, as long as you know that nobody has a food allergy I would suggest not telling them the ingredients until after they taste this. Some people freak out about mayo. They are strange, we love them regardless, heck, I married one of these people, but she loved this when I made it.
Next you can find this recipe all over the internet on a lot of sites and even purchase it from Bob Gibson. My go to site and one that I have a paid subscription to is amazingribs.com and I got the recipe from the free portion of that site. You can see it HERE. I keep this sauce in our fridge at all times now.
Makes. 1.5 cups of sauce, enough for 2 large chickens or 3 Cornish game hens, which serves 4 to 6 people
Takes. 10 minutes for the sauce, about 45 minutes to cook the meat
Ingredients
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup apple juice
1 tablespoon powdered garlic
1 tablespoon prepared horseradish from a jar (either in vinegar or creamy)
1 tablespoon coarsely ground black (I use Aleppo or Spices Inc's PA Pepper) pepper
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon finely ground cayenne pepper (can omit if substituting Aleppo for black pepper
Method
1) Whisk together all the ingredients in a large bowl and refrigerate in a jar for at least 2 hours, if possible, to allow the flavors to meld.
2) When the chicken comes off the grill dunk it in the sauce or baste the chicken with the sauce.
3) Make sure there are plenty of napkins
4) Prepare yourself to humbly accept the accolades
5) If you wanted to discuss something but not really get any feedback, now is the time because nobody will be talking during the meal; they will be eating!
Monday is Meatloaf and Taters Day
We decided on meatloaf for Monday over the weekend. Next time we are going to use Kathryn's Recipe (sorry it is a secret of the pitmaster club) adaptation of this ORIGINAL RECIPE.
But today we went with a simpler version that of course included bacon. You can view the cooking log HERE it includes the recipes.
Here's some pics:
Thursday: Last Meal Ribs and Center Cut Round Roast
Pictured above are the finished products. Of course you can click them for a larger view you meat perv, you didn't have to ask. Here is how we got there.
On Tuesday the meat was finished defrosting and I gave them both a nice dry brine of kosher salt, then wrapped them up nice and tight and they went into the fridge. For the pork ribs I followed this recipe Last Meal Ribs: The Best Barbecue Ribs Ever. For the beef roast I followed these guidelines Recipe: Secrets Of Cooking Beef Prime Rib Roast, Strip Loin Roast, Tenderloin, Chuck Roast, Round, Rump Roast, And Other Beef Roasts On The Grill. And This Method Works Indoors If It's Too Cold For You, Wimp.
This meal was cooked on my 22.5" Weber with a Slow N Sear. If you have a kettle grill I cannot recommend too strongly that you get one of these. The grill was "set" to 225 degrees and I added apple wood and a touch of hickory. The ribs were given a nice rub of Meathead's Memphis Dust. The beef was rubbed with MMD and BBBR (Big Bad Beef Rub).
The pork went on at 12:30 and cooked for about 6 hours. At the six hour mark it passed the bend test but I left them on as I was keeping the lid raised to sear the beef. Weber's original classic BBQ sauce was served on the side, I did not baste the ribs with it.
The beef went on at 3pm and came off at 4:30. It was a 134 internally and so it was placed in a 150 degree oven to hold. At 6 pm the beef went back on the direct heat side of the grill to be seared.
I recommend serving the beef with beef butter. Feel free to experiment with the herbs, I did as I was out of tarragon. I use a 1/4 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp basil, 1/2 teaspoon lemon thyme, and 1/2 tsp rosemary for a 1lb block of Kerry's Gold Butter.
Tuesday is Texas Brisket Day
Having experimented with the flat over the weekend, I was holding on to the point until today. I am now a full-fledged brisket fan. That point, mmmm mmmm good.
The Slow'NSear was set in accordance with the 225 degree directions and the meat went on the grill at 6:34 AM when the grate temperature hit 225. At noon we hit an internal temp of 154 and I employed the famed Texas Crutch. The point came off the grill at 4:15 when both an internal temperature of 203 and the Thermapen went into it like a hot knife through butter.
Want the recipe? Try this Recipe: Texas Beef Brisket.
First Brisket: The Flat
It is amazing how much you can learn in a single cook. There is no replacing experience! I feel much more confident and ready to cook the next one. Many thanks to all on http://pitmaster.amazingribs.com, and the author Meathead Goldwyn for putting together such a great book. I must have picked it up a dozen times today to check and recheck information. The cook log is accessible here.
The brisket was trimmed and separated into the point and flat on Friday night and then dry-brined in the fridge until it was cook time. I seasoned it with Big Bad Beef Rub and it went on the grill at 7:45am. At 4:18 it was pulled from the grill, wrapped and placed in a faux chambro. When the internal temperature dropped to 149 degrees I removed it and sliced it.
