Monday, February 15, 2010

Tenderloin

Yum. We purchased this tenderloin from Central Market for around $16 a pound. It was on sale, and a good deal by CM standards. When we got home from the grocery store, I rinsed, dried, tied, and salted the meat. I didn't measure the salt (I'm bad about that) but sprinkled it on; it was probably about 1 to 1.5 tablespoons of course sea salt. Then into the fridge it went. Somehow I managed to teach myself how to do the butcher store tying of the tenderloin, so it was very pretty and professional looking. The husband was impressed.


A note about twine: we use organic cotton cooking twine. We didn't always, it used to be standard twiney twine, but it always seems to disappear from the kitchen, moving to other parts of the house to do other tying duties. After a particularly stressful search for the runaway twine, I found and purchased the organic stuff. Because of its nature, as food safe and special and all, it does not have the same wandering tendencies and stays in its place in our silverware drawer. It is well worth the extra couple of dollars, as far as I'm concerned, to have a special kitchen twine that stays in the kitchen where it belongs.

The meat came out of the fridge roughly 2 hours before it went in the oven. The recipe recommended one hour, but I took it out and it took us some time to be ready to cook it. We used our remote thermometer thing (an amazing tool, and I highly recommend it for cooking meat. Meat of any kind. I also said to the husband, during dinner, that if his folks had one we would have been spared many stressful and dramatic pre-dinner experiences. I want to quote them here but I won't, out of respect to the husband. Maybe in the future...) and the meat beeped when it was the perfect temperature to remove from the oven, 125.

Once out, it got a nice tent of foil over the top, and it sat that way for about 20 minutes as we finished other things. The husband said the internal temperature raised 13 more degrees while it sat, and then leveled off at a nice 138.

The simple rub of olive oil and cracked pepper, combined with the salt, gave the meat a lovely crispy edge with a nice pink color and unbelievably tender inside. I wish I had better words to describe the texture of this meat (I will work on my descriptive prowess, I promise). Very soft, easily cut with a butter knife, and moist and yummy. I took the middle pieces (they were more red than pink) and the husband took the ones closer to the edge, since he likes his more done. The beauty of the tenderloin is the range of done-ness that can be achieved; everyone can dine happily.

 


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