Sweet and Sour in Boston

So I didn't post any pics from the Steak Night we had with the beef tenderloin. You will just have to take my word for it that it was unbelievably delicious. Butchering a whole tenderloin is not only yummy, but a really good bargain too.

What was left after that night was the head roast and the chain meat. I'll be making cheese steaks out of the latter sometime soon. I made a stuffed roast with the former for dinner tonight.

Taking the recipe/technique from Alton Brown, but substituting the blue cheese with a mixture of spinach, goat cheese and garlic. Basically butterfly the roast, sear both sides, add in the filling and roll up the roast. Alton used string, but I didn't have any in our kitchen. So I used the next best thing: bacon!

I slightly overcooked the roast. Closer to Medium than medium rare. Turned out pretty good I though.

So I've been dying to take a whole beef tenderloin and break it down and eat it all in one session. Well, maybe not all of it, and definitely not by myself. Any fan of Alton Brown will remember his two part episode called "Tender is the loin". He tells us to go to a BJ's, Costco, Sam's Warehouse, etc, to get a PSMO Tenderloin. (Peeled side meat on tenderloin).

These websites show how to break the tenderloin down:

http://www.memakefood.com/2008/05/10/my-first-psmo-beef-tenderloin/

http://www.filtsai.com/cooking/tenderloin/

I have the Good Eats episodes on my computer, so I had it on play/pause while I broke this piece of meat down.

Here are the steps I took:

1. Rinse the tenderloin in the sink with cold water and let it dry.



2. Place the tenderloin "rib" side down and peel apart all the fat with your fingers and knife.



3. Remove the chain meat. (I'll be making philly cheesesteaks with this later!)



4. Flip the meat over and carve out the fat on the "rib" side.

5. Flip back over and remove the Silver Skin. Alton Brown describes this perfectly.

6. Slice off the small side meat that is connected to the large tenderloin. I'll probably make a roast out of this guy. Maybe fill it with cheese like Alton did, but not bluecheese.




7. Now is the portioning part. I cut the tenderloin into 5 filets, 1 large chateaubriand and 1 smaller roast that I'll probably cut up into smaller steaks for tonight.






So that's a lot of meat. It cost $6.99/lb last night. $43 overall. 20 minutes to butcher, will be faster next time since I know what I'm doing now. If you just bought 5 filets at a grocery store it'd be $43 at least. If you got those steaks at Whole Foods or Foodies, it'd easily be over $50. So take in the fact that I have cheesesteaks and 3 other roasts, this is quite a bargain!

I'll post pics of the final cooked images later tonight. We have a bunch of steak loving friends coming over to enjoy this feast.