- Filet is delicious, easy to prepare and an affordable luxury.
- If you buy carefully, a fillet serving of 7 ounces costs about $ 8 – cheaper than take out.
- That steak contains 13 grams of fat, about half the fat of a rib eye.
- This is an opinion column. The thoughts were expressed by the author.
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Like many of you, the pandemic made me cook more at home. I must have made Ina Garten’s lemon chicken breasts about 50 times. When I feel more indulgent, I bake Martha Stewart’s crispy apricot pork chops. (As with any pork chop recipe, it’s important to buy good, not too lean chops.)
I improved my braise game: I make chicken cacciatore, chicken thighs with mushrooms and tarragon and wine, chicken thighs with fennel and lemon, chicken curry, pork stew with clear sauce … let’s just say my Le Creusets saw a lot of action.
Of course, sides are also important. I repeatedly indulged in Mark Bittman’s potatoes. I cook broccoli and pour it in olive oil. I blanch broccoli rabe and sauté it with whole garlic cloves.
I saute spinach – always frozen, which has so much less pain than boiling a bunch of fresh spinach. Just sauté a shallot or two with a sautéed and finely chopped jalapeno pepper in olive oil, add a pound of frozen chopped spinach, salt, pepper and a little chopped fresh herbs – bam, instant side.
I enjoyed this cooking routine. But after about a year, I made an important decision: from now on, steak night is always filet mignon.
Fillet is the best steak
Unlike other popular foods that I like, no one would say that the endorsement of filet mignon (or pork rabbit) is contradictory. Everyone loves fillet: That’s why fillet is so expensive! But I mean it’s the best steak for you to make at home.
The superior softness of Filet is why it charges such a high price. But it also has other benefits. Its softness makes it very easy to prepare, as it does not have to be soft (I will describe my preferred method below.) The small diameter makes it easy to portion: steaks about one and a half centimeters thick weigh about half a pound , which means that every meal can have a whole steak without getting too much beef. And it contains much less fat than other premium steaks, such as riboog and strip.
And while fillet is expensive as beef cuts go, cooking at home is a frugal activity. If you have cooked more at home, you have the space to use ingredients, especially if you have a good value for your meat.
You can pay over $ 30 per pound for pork, but lately I’ve been buying tenderloin steaks at $ 18 per pound at Stop & Shop, and I’m very pleased with the quality. At the price you pay about $ 8 per person for a 7 ounce steak. Add rice or potatoes and vegetables, and then you are far below what it would cost to pick up.
And you probably eat less fat too.
How to cook a perfect fillet mignon
Preheat your oven to 275 degrees.
Spread kosher salt on all sides on your steaks (which should preferably be a little less than half a pound each).
Bake the steaks on a rack in a baking sheet until their internal temperature rises to 115 degrees. I monitor them with a probe thermometer, so I do not have to take them out of the oven to test the temperature; in fact, I use a sin for virtually all meat recipes, and I do not understand how someone cooks without one.
Heat a heavy pan or grill (preferably cast iron) over high heat on the stovetop. When the steaks reach 115 degrees, add butter or oil to the hot pan and then immediately add the steaks.
Just sear one minute on each side, then take it out on a plate. Season both sides with freshly ground black pepper, cover with aluminum foil and rest for 10 minutes. The steaks will end up at a perfect medium-rare indoor temperature, about 135 degrees.
You will want to enhance the taste
One of the disadvantages of fillet is that it is less flavorful than fatty cuts, so it is especially important to improve the taste of the steaks before serving.
A good bottled steak sauce is always an option. If I feel like it, I’ll make a pan sauce while the steaks rest. Take the pan in which you seared the steaks, sauté a large shallot, then add red wine, beef stock, a little balsamic vinegar and thyme. Reduce it until thick, remove from the heat, add the juice that collects on the plate on which the steak rested and whisk in a few pieces of cold butter so that it becomes glossy. (“Glossy” is a euphemism for sauces that are high in butter.)
But it’s excessive for a weeknight. My favorite simple approach lately is to baste the steaks with a fragrant and fragrant extra virgin olive oil, like this coratina from Chile.
Other steaks are too big and greasy
Before my fillet woke up, my steak night steak was New York strip. And I like a good strip. It beats a fillet for a rich, meaty flavor. But strips (and rib eye) have disadvantages.
First, a nice thick cut strip or rib eye is going to weigh a lot more than a pound, maybe almost two pounds. Because it’s too big for a person – and because the sticky greasy strip of the steak had to be cut off before I ate, I always had to cut the steaks before I served them. Especially when entertaining, it is a time consuming task that comes at the end of cooking when you want to get everything on the table at once.
Strips and ribs naturally have much higher fat than fillets. I can look at a fillet and tell myself that it is a healthy choice. No one makes a joke about the health value of a rib eye.
And because the single-serving nature of fillet portion control offers – if you serve sliced strip steak, each person is likely to eat more than half a pound – choosing fillet saves more calories than you would expect, and even saves money.
Go ahead, spoil yourself
Filet has an aura for a special occasion, but how special should the occasion be to spoil yourself with a $ 8 piece of meat?
Rough day? Busy day? Do you need to cook at home and want something easy but indulgent, without too much fat? Do I have the steak for you?
It’s a fillet.