CHATEAUBRIAND at home |Easy Recipe

A perfect easy dinner at home

What is Chateaubriand ?

I m sure by looking at that photo I bet you are hungry. But before I go into how can you cook this amazing tasty fine dinning restaurant style dinner , let me introduce you to what is this ? I promise I am going to keep it short & sweet .

In essence to all the fuss which goes around with this dish , it's actually quite simple -

It's a larger centre cut of fillet of tenderloin . Usually its cooked as a whole chunk of that but here , I have improvise as most of us like to have small meals and less left overs.

You have to know one thing , basic when you trying to recreate any fancy dish, the good the quality of your ingredients the better the results are.

If you try to cook something which is as fancy as this and use a wrong cut / undercut of meat your Chateaubriand would not be the same or might taste just horrible.

So now we know a little bit of Meat , why this fancy name ?

As the legend has it, the chateaubriand was named after a French aristocrat name Francois- Rene De Chateaubriand whose chef invented a method of cooking a large , boneless cut of beef by wrapping it in a very poor -quality steaks tying it up and grilling it until it was charred

People often get confused with between fillet mignon which was the original tender cut of meat and this ? Well let me break the bubble , it's the SAME ....

When tenderloin cut into thin slices and cooked its Fillet Mignon and when the chunk of tenderloin left as whole and trimmed its called Chateaubriand - ROAST SIZE FILET MIGNON ..

We can find very easily tenderloin in any butchers or Supermarket . Remember to ask for for whole meat trimmed and tied or like in my case Colin always get them cut into small 3 cm inch thick weighing about 25-35 gms. Just an estimate of weight , but the cut has to be precise not too thick nor too thin..

Best served with potatoes , with shallots tarragon sauce. Traditionally the sauce uses dry red wine , but , with me improvising the sauce I only use bit of beef / chicken stock. and It still tastes good.

So, let's start the recipe what you require to cook this and ingredients which are easily available to you .

Ingredients :-

1. 1 pound or beef tenderloin centre cut ) or Fillet sliced into 3-5 inch thickness.

2. Salt & Freshly ground Pepper to season the meat .

3. 3 table spoon of butter ( I usually eye ball it so just adjust to your liking )

4. 2 table spoon of Olive oil

5. 
   

For making the Sauce (if you like )

1. 1 medium shallots , finely chopped

2. 1/2 cup or 1/4 cup of good beef / chicken stalk.

3. salt to taste

4. freshly ground pepper ( don't forget you have seasoned your meat with pepper as well so use according to your liking )

5. 1 tables spoon of fresh tarragon or 2 table spoon dried leaves of tarragon .

Steps to Cook It :-

1. Pat dry the meat . Make sure there is no moisture in there .

Make sure its pat dried to get that crispy and soft cooking taste

2. Season with generous amount of Salt & Freshly Ground Pepper .

No piece of beef is good with out proper seasoning.

3-4"inch Sliced Tendorloin, you can use a centre part of fillet as whole to cook

3. Melt the butter and Olive together in Cast iron pan until cloudy and bubbly. Use preferably Cast iron pan over medium -high heat for equal distribution of heat. And meat cooks evenly .

Cast iron Pan for equal distribution of heat

Melt Butter & Olive oil together

3. Place the seasoned meat in pan and brown for 3 minutes . Do not move the meat . Using tongs carefully turn the meat on side and brown for another 3 minutes .

I would suggest use the timer while doing this step without over cooking it . Brown all sides which are raw.

Place the Meat carefully in pan brown each side for 3min

Brown all side for 3 min

4. Now here is an important Step this is where it changes . You are suppose to finish cooking in oven by placing it on a roasting rack for about 15 minutes for medium to rare , or 20 min for medium well.

Like I mention am sharing the recipes which we both have improvise tested and tasted both ways. So now if you running short on time and want to cook fast with out rushing or heating the oven etc .

I would continue cooking in pan . I give extra 2 min on all sides after they have been cooked 3 minutes on each side.

Now you have to remember if you like this method , I would highly recommend using cast iron skillet . You cannot get charred almost oven like taste from cooking into non-stick pan.

As the taste would be different and it might also get hard or tough to cut through your knife.

Medium to Rare Give extra 1 minute each side if you are not roasting in oven

Done Cooked rare -medium

Sauce :-

Melt the butter in same pan , add chopped shallots . Cook until they turn pink . Add the fresh or dried tarragon leaves . Add beef or chicken stalk and deglaze the pan. Cook at low heat for about 2-3 minutes . You can even add heavy creme in this to give a nice thick texture . Switch off and pour the sauce over the meat.

I served it with Garlic Mash which is quite easy to make , creamy smooth and garlicky . Let me know in comments if you would like a recipe on that ..

We both enjoy this as its quite easy to cook and less to clean up after and less to chop or prep unlike when I cook Thai / Indian dishes.

End result looked something like this

Perfect Juicy tender Chateaubriand on Garlic Mash

Rare To Medium - Cooked evenly tender and juicy

Hope you all loved this first easy recipe by us . Don't forget to follow me on my Instagram and Facebook .

At this time I don't what recipe I shall be sharing but , I promise it's going to be an easy one.

Enjoy !!