CHÂTEAUBRIAND STEAK WITH BÉARNAISE SAUCE
SOURCE: JULIA CHILD AND JACQUES PÉPIN. JULIA AND JACQUES COOKING AT HOME.
Aside from spearheading the French Romantic movement, François-René de Châteaubriand was the raison d’être why we prefer and enjoy our steaks thick, juicy, and bloody red. The viscount's carnivorous love of steaks earned him a posthumous spot in gastronomic dictionaries and encyclopedias as an expensive cut extracted from the voluminous section of the beef tenderloin. Whether that portion refers to the blunt end of the fillet butt or the thickest region of the center loin, encountering and savoring a Châteaubriand steak cut in butcher shops and fine dining restaurants is a rarity nowadays. However, a miserly home cook can still trim a Châteaubriand steak from an entire beef tenderloin, such as one in the recipe detailed below. A Châteaubriand sourced from the fillet butt is malleable towards pounding, which speeds up the cooking time and gives the meat a more definite shape. Serve with Béarnaise sauce, and the Châteaubriand steak becomes a memorable steak meal as romantic as the literary namesake himself.
Ingredients
1 piece tenderloin, weighing 20 ounces/570 grams and having a width of 5 inches/13 cm, cut from the large blunt end or the fillet butt of a whole tenderloin that has been trimmed of the thin strip and the thick silver-skinned membrane
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 teaspoon/5 mL olive oil or other vegetable oil
Specific Equipment
Kitchen towel
Meat mallet or a heavy skillet
Ridged stovetop grill pan or heavy-duty sauté pan
Tongs
Roasting pan
Serves 4
Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 250°F/120°C.
2. Stand the tenderloin piece wider-cut end down on a flat working surface. Fold the kitchen towel lengthwise, and wrap it around the fillet but loosely like wearing a scarf. Gather both ends of the towel, and twist to form a tight collar that will hold the shape of the meat during pounding.
3. Grasp the tightly twisted end of the towel, and pound the top of the tenderloin with a meat mallet or heavy until it flattens into an oval steak with a thickness of 2 inches/5 cm and a width of 5-7 inches/13-18 cm.
4. Heat a grill pan or sauté pan over high heat until it is very hot. Rub the steak with oil, and season with salt and pepper.
5. Place the steak at an angle to the ridges of the grill pan, and sear for 2 1/2 to 3 minutes or until ridges leave dark brown marks on the steak. Turn the steak over to the other side, while maintaining the same angle and grill for another 2 1/2 to 3 minutes. Flip the steak back to its initial side, this time, rotating the steak to an opposite angle so the visible grill marks lie perpendicular to the ridges. Cook again 2 1/2 to 3 minutes, which will form a criss-cross pattern on the surface of the steak. Reverse the steak to the other side while maintaining the same angle, and brown for another 2 1/2 to 3 minutes so both sides will display identical criss-cross patterns. Grab the steak with tongs, and sear the meat on the its edges. Shifting the meat so the entire edge gets browned during grilling. The total grill time of a Châteaubriand steak ranges at 10 to 12 minutes, depending on the thickness of the steak and the desired degree of doneness.
6. When the Châteaubriand steak barely springs back to the touch of a finger, indicating its interior rareness, transfer to a roasting pan and place inside the oven for 15 minutes.
7. Remove the roasting pan from the oven and place the Châteaubriand steak on a serving platter. Slice the meat thinly on its bias, across the grain of the steak, and pour the drippings over. Serve with Béarnaise sauce..
