Grilled Beef Tenderloin Roast

My friend Amanda wanted to grill something for her husband’s birthday. She decided on doing a nice beef tenderloin (Filet Mignon) roast, so I wrote up this recipe for her. This is a fantastic way to serve grilled filet mignon to a lot of guests without having to spend all your time grilling individual steaks.

With this recipe you’ll only spend about ½ hr at the grill, and you can do the grilling up to 2 or 3 hrs ahead. The roast actually gets better after sitting for a while. Finish grilling just before your guests arrive, then relax and enjoy a glass of wine with them before serving.

You’ll need:

• 1 Big-ass beef tenderloin (ours was about 5lbs)
  
• Crushed Garlic
  
• Olive Oil
• Sea (or Kosher) Salt (do not use Iodized Salt)
• Pepper
• Cotton cooking twine
• Instant-read thermometer
• 1 daily edition of the San Francisco Chronicle (steal it from a neighbor who hasn't picked theirs up yet if you don't subscribe)
• 6 - 8 sprigs of rosemary as long as the roast

If you're planning to serve this roast at say, 7pm, proceed as follows:

ASAP: Go buy the roast.

3:30pm:
First, cut the silverskin off of the loin. Silverskin is a connective tissue that shrinks when cooked and will turn your roast into a ball if you don't remove it. It looks like fat, only tougher. Slide a knife under the silverskin, then pull up on the skin as you slide the knife down, removing the entire strip of silverskin as close to the meat as possible.

Fold the skinny end of the roast under so that your roast is an even thickness from end to end. Tie it up with cotton twine at 1" intervals (winding it around works fine).

Lay the roast on a sheet of wax paper or cling film. Rub the crushed garlic over the roast, then drizzle with olive oil all over and sprinkle liberally with salt & pepper. Pull the wax paper/cling film around the roast and wrap tightly. Let the roast sit out on the counter--you want it to be at room temp when you start grilling).

5:30pm:
Heat up the grill to super hot by leaving all burners on high for about 10 minutes. Your grill will probably reach about 500f degrees.

When the grill is ready, unwrap the roast and bring it out. Place the roast on the grill and turn the heat down to low. Close the lid. After 5 minutes, turn the roast and brown another side. After 10 more minutes, brown the next side. Turn twice again, at 10 minute intervals, until the entire roast is nicely browned.

Insert an instant-read thermometer. You should now be somewhere between 110 - 120f degrees. If you are, then you're done. If you're over, well that's ok, we'll live. If you're under, turn and leave the roast another 5 minutes and check again.

Open up your Chronicle and pull out several full-size sheets of paper (one complete section usually works nicely). Lay your sprigs of rosemary across one corner where you’ll place the roast. When your roast reaches the desired temperature, pull it off of the grill and lay it on the rosemary. Lay additional sprigs on top of the raost. Roll the paper over the roast one complete turn then fold in the ends. Continue rolling TIGHTLY to the end. If you like, you can wrap this in aluminium foil to avoid any drips on your counter. Leave this out on the counter now until you're ready to serve. It'll continue cooking slightly, and will actually keep warm for several hours. Let the roast rest like this for a MINIMUM of 30 minutes.

6:30 or 7pm or whenever you're ready to serve:
Bring out the roast, and remove the string. Slice into 1" thick cuts, and plate. Serve it with some really yummy dijon mustard.

Note: the roast will be nice and pink in color all the way to the edge, but with a consistency and flavor closer to medium rare. If you have a guest who prefers their steak a little more well done you can finish their portion by grilling both sides back on the bbq.

French Herbed BBQ Ribs

Severino's Community Butcher bring the world's best pork to the Mountain View Farmer's Market (as well as a few other tasty meats). Last weekend, I picked up a rack of baby back ribs that had more flavor than anything I've ever tried before. Rather than ruining the flavor of the pork with a thick tomatoey BBQ sauce, I opted for a fresh spring herb dry rub. The result was fantastic, by Trisha's reckoning the best ribs she'd ever had.

For the Dry Rub:

• 2 Tbsp Herbs de Provence (Or some mixture of thyme with rosemary, marjoram, basil, bay leaf and lavender)
• 1 Tbsp raw sugar
• 2 tsp kosher salt
• 2 tsp dry mustard
• 1 tsp sweet paprika

Put herbs with salt into a mortar and grind until fine. Add the remaining ingredients.

Separate the rack into individual ribs. Put the ribs and the rub in a ziplock bag, seal, and shake to coat.

Spread out the ribs onto a shallow flat pan (I used my paella pan) and cook low & slow over indirect heat for a few hours, turning occassionally. I cooked my in the center of my 4-burner BBQ grill with only the outside burners on. Ribs are done when the meat pulls away from the end of the bone and the rub forms a nice crispy coating, about 3 hrs at 220f degrees.