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Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Roast Beef Tenderloin with Red Current Jus - a Gutsy Cooks selection

Since I didn't host Thanksgiving dinner this year, I had no leftover turkey to use up over the weekend. A hearty roast beef dinner seemed like just the thing for a festive dinner for two. When I went to the grocery store, I saw that beef tenderloin was $25 a pound--it didn't take a math whiz to figure out that even making half of the recipe (which calls for two pounds of tenderloin) was going to cost me $25. Holy cow! (No pun intended). Still, I decided to go for broke (literally), and I made the purchase.

I was a little scared to handle this gold-plated hunk of meat, but all I had to do was brown it on all sides and then roast it until it hit 130 degrees. Being an uneven piece of meat, it bewildered my instant-read thermometer. Was it 138? Yes. Was it 115? Yes. Better too rare than overdone, I figured, so I removed it from the oven and let it rest.

When I started cutting it, I saw that it was quite rare, but I didn't need a sharp knife to carve it. A local restaurant here advertises the "Silver Butterknife Steak." This is a butterknife roast.
A delicious meal. I don't know if anything is worth $25 a pound, but this meat came close. It was tender but had a fine beefy flavor. I feared that the sauce, made with Ruby port, red currant jelly, and bacon, might be too sweet, but it was a perfect blend of tart, sweet, and salty. It didn't mask the taste of the roast, but complemented it. And the baby asparagus, along with the mashed potatoes made with leftover heavy cream, were nice accompaniments.
A real splurge for a dinner for two. But everyone has to splurge now and then, right?

2 comments:

  1. Ohhh it looks so good! Now you made me crave mash potatoes.. I had the asparagus covered *wink*.

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  2. It was good. And so were the mashed potatoes--cream and butter makes them ultra-delicious.

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