Categories
Sauces and Salsas The Book

106. Whipped Horseradish Cream p.893

Unfortunately there’s no recipe online for this one.

Beef and horseradish is one of those great combinations, the fiery sinus clearing slap-in-the-face of horseradish works really well with the succulent richness of beef. It’s not much good with other meats, but beef and horseradish is a love story for the ages. In this preparation horseradish is mixed with cider vinegar, honey, salt and pepper, and then folded into stiffly beaten cream.

The recipe calls for 3-4 tablespoons of horseradish, to one cup of cream, then suggests that you taste and adjust at the end. It calls for grating your own root if you can find one, or gives the jarred stuff and an acceptable alternative. I had a jar in the fridge so I went with it. I had just enough left for the recipe, and didn’t think to pick up a new jar. I didn’t account for the fact that horseradish loses its pungency quickly once it’s been opened, so mine was a little anemic. I could have used twice as much of my post-haircut-Samson horseradish and not risked burning anyone’s nose. Everything else in the recipe is there to mellow the horseradish out, so this ended up tasting much too smooth and creamy. My dining companioned compared it to horseradish scented air.

I like my horseradish hot, so even if I’ve got the freshest most powerful root on the block, I’d rather not have it tamed too much. I don’t think the honey was really necessary, it doesn’t really add to the horseradish experience, and it risks taking the whipped cream over into dessert territory. Similarly the whipped cream served to add volume, and dilute the horseradish, I’d frankly prefer grated horseradish with a little cream to make it saucy, and a boost of salt and pepper. The whipped cream made it a delicate airy foam, which just doesn’t seem like the right texture for horseradish. I’d rather treat it more like hot sauce, or wasabi, pungently lurking in the corner of my plate, waiting for each bite to be dipped with excited trepidation, and punishing those brave or foolhardy souls who overdo it. Admittedly this version is a bit safer to serve to your grandmother, but the risk of horseradish is half the fun.

Categories
Sauces and Salsas The Book

105. Stilton Sauce p.884


No recipe this time

A blue cheese sauce is a classic pairing for a roast tenderloin. This was my favorite of the three sauces I served on this particular evening, but I had trouble remembering anything about it. I incorrectly identified it as a béarnaise sauce in yesterday’s post. I think that says a lot about the sauce.

The recipe calls for Stilton or Roquefort, I prefer Roquefort’s more mellowed character so I went with it. The cheese is softened and mixed with an ungodly amount of butter, and then stirred into a reduced mixture of white wine and heavy cream. Once it’s melted some flat leaf parsley is stirred in, and it’s drizzled over beef or vegetables.

It’s a foregone conclusion that a sauce made of Roquefort, butter, wine, and cream is going to be insanely delicious, and this was. This classic sauce has been replicated so many times in so many ways that it’s lost all novelty though. The only real difference between the blue cheese sauce at a mega chain steakhouse, and a fine dining version is the quality of the cheese going in. But with all the butter and cream the individuality of the cheese is obscured. I don’t find much variation in the world of blue cheese sauces, they’re rich, and delightfully stinky, but they never blow me away. This was no exception, it tasted very good, but there’s nothing to really latch on to about it.

Categories
Beef, Veal, Pork, and Lamb The Book

104. Beef Tenderloin with Cornichon Tarragon Sauce p.416


The recipe

Some good friends were coming to dinner, and I wanted to make something a bit special. When I’m looking for dishes suitable for an occasion, beef tenderloin is frequently at the top of that list. I had frozen part of the tenderloin I used for the Twenty-First-Century Beef Wellington so it was an easy choice to make. I decided to serve the roast tenderloin with three sauces, the cornichon tarragon sauce from this recipe, a Stilton sauce, and whipped horseradish cream. This sort of a menu seems much more appropriate to the fall weather I’m writing this in, than the summer weather I cooked it in. However, it was a pleasantly warm day, and I made one important change to the recipe. I grilled my tenderloin outside instead of sticking it in a 350 degree oven. The sauces were a bit rich for summer, but that just encouraged restraint.

The sauce is made by reducing white wine, shallots and tarragon, then adding cream, thinly sliced cornichons, and a mixture of mustard whipped with butter. This was a seriously powerful sauce. The mustard, tarragon, and shallot flavours were fairly strong on their own, but the cornichons were overpowering. I picked up good quality, imported sour gherkins from France. They were mouth puckeringly sour, without too much other flavour. They were nicely crunchy, but not really my favourite pickle style. The recipe calls for a lot of these little guys, and their concentrated vinegar permeated the whole sauce. My first impression of the sauce wasn’t great, just too sour, and overpowering the somewhat subtle flavours of the tenderloin. As I ate more it grew on me though. Once I stopped making a sourpuss face the underlying flavours came out, and they were good. The sauce also mellowed over the next day, and ended up being in a better balance.

I’m not sure if this is how the recipe was intended to turn out, or I just got a batch of very sour pickles. I think it’s possible I did everything right, because my dining companion preferred this sauce to the other two choices. She agreed that it was sour, but she enjoyed the interplay of the rich creaminess, with the clear vinegar cutting across it. I won’t rush to repeat this one, and if I did I’d try a different brand of pickle, or cut back on them. This sauce had to struggle to get over a bad first impression, but it did redeem itself after a few bites.

Categories
Beef, Veal, Pork, and Lamb The Book

103. Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Mojo Sauce p.476


The recipe

I chose this recipe because it was over 30 degrees, humid, and didn’t look like it was going to cool down overnight. We had dinner late because we couldn’t stand the thought of eating until the relative cool of the evening. This tenderloin fit the bill for a light dish that wouldn’t heat up the house. I was too hot to think, and this recipe is simple enough that I didn’t have to. I happened to have a tenderloin in the freezer, and an orange in the fruit basket, so I didn’t have risk sweating my way over the grocery store.

The recipe is simplicity itself. I just rubbed a tenderloin with salt, pepper, and a bit of oregano, then threw it on the grill. Meanwhile I whipped up the mojo sauce, which is nothing by orange juice, garlic, oil, and more oregano. Once the meat was cooked and rested, I sliced it and drizzled with the sauce.

For about five minutes work it was quite good. Oregano smells wonderful when it burns, and it left the crust of the meat with that great charred perfume. I’m a bit iffy on meats with sweet sauces, but the citrus was welcome on that stiflingly humid evening. The orange and garlic combination was new to me, and it probably wouldn’t occur to me to pair them, but it was quite delicious. The simply grilled tenderloin was nicely complimented by the straightforward flavours of the sauce. I wasn’t really in a mood for nuance, and this was certainly unfussy.

This isn’t a dish to try to impress the neighbours with, but it has its uses. It uses simple ingredients, doesn’t heat up the house, and it’s pretty much impossible to mess up. When you’re suffering from heat stroke these are all good qualities. Pork tenderloin is very lean and easy on the stomach, but it still feels substantial and like a real meal. When I’m looking forward to a night of uncomfortable twisting and turning in the sauna that is my bedroom, indigestion is not a risk I’m willing to take. This dish didn’t wow me, but I was very happy to find it on that particular night.

Categories
Beef, Veal, Pork, and Lamb The Book

77. Twenty-First-Century Beef Wellington p.418

The recipe

There’s not much left to say about this dish. I’ve described it pretty thoroughly in the posts for Cilantro Walnut Filling and the Sour Cream Pastry Dough . Those two recipes are the main ingredients for the final Beef Wellington recipe. A nice big beef tenderloin seasoned with salt and pepper is thoroughly browned, covered in the cilantro walnut filling, and then wrapped up in the sour cream pastry dough. The dough is decorated with cut out bits of pastry, given an egg wash, then the whole thing is baked.

As I said in their respective posts, the dough was a real winner, while the filling was just OK on it’s own, and very out of place in a beef wellington. I mildly overcooked the tenderloin but it was still excellent. Filet mignion and a perfectly baked crust were more than enough to make up for the filling. The final dish was tasty, but I really missed the mushroom of the traditional Wellington. I could live without the big slice of pâté though.

Beef tenderloin can be a real hit to the wallet, at higher end butcher shops a whole tenderloin sells for close to $100, which is really not in line with my financial reality. I managed to find a commercial cut tenderloin (PSMO) for one third the price. It was good quality meat (not organic, local, or in any way fancy, but perfectly nice), but it required a little bit of work on my part. A commercial cut tenderloin comes with a good deal of silver skin to be removed, as well as an extra little side muscle best used for something else. I can’t say that peeling off silver skin is much fun, but it’s absolutely worth doing for the price difference.

This updated beef Wellington didn’t really improve on the original, and other than having beef in a pastry had very little in common with beef Wellington. The pastry and beef were top notch, while the filling was somewhat lacking. I would use this recipe again, but I’d go back to a more traditional filling. I don’t regret making it, but I’m not itching to have the twenty-first century version again.

Categories
Beef, Veal, Pork, and Lamb The Book

48. Island Pork Tenderloin p.475


This recipe from Epicurious includes the tenderloin recipe from The Book, and a bonus salad.

This was an incredibly easy and delicious way to prepare a pork tenderloin. It took almost no forethought because it’s based entirely on pantry staples. Chances are I wouldn’t even have to go out to get the tenderloins. I’m liable to have a couple in my freezer at any given time because they vary so wildly in price. Sometimes you can pay $13 per loin, and then have them go on sale for $3.50 the next week. Steaks are like that too, but it always puzzles me.

The pork is browned with a dry rub of salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder, and cinnamon, and then covered with a brown sugar, garlic, Tabasco mixture and roasted. The browning opens up the flavours of the dry rub, and then the brown sugar coating melts into a spicy garlic glaze. The glaze helped keep the pork juicy and tender, and added deep molasses and caramel flavours. I was worried that it would end up too sweet (1 cup of brown sugar for 2 tenderloins), but it didn’t end up tasting candied at all.

This disappeared within minutes of putting it out, and got rave reviews. I loved that the recipe provided big flavours and an attractive presentation for hardly any time effort or energy. Island Pork Tenderloin, you’ve earned your 5 mushrooms.