Saturday, February 16, 2013.
Home Cooking.
The boyfriend spent the night at the ranch, and still I couldn't find anyone interesting in having breakfast with me.
While I was doing the radio show, Mary Ann called from the Fresh Market. There was a whole tenderloin in the meat case at $14.99 a pound. I asked her to tell me what the grade was on the plastic pouch. "Prime, it says." I asked her again. Was the word Prime inside a shield? "Yes. USDA Prime."
"Grab that sucker before somebody else does," I said. Prime filet mignon at $15 a pound? I wondered what the catch was.
No catch, as it turned out. It needed a little trimming, which removed maybe a pound of fat and silverskin and chain. But that's still a great deal.
I fired up the Big Green Egg to just under 700 degrees. Cut the tenderloin into three pieces. The big end I saved for some future use to be announced later. The center one-third and the tournedos-tips end I coated with salt and pepper and dropped over the hot fire. My plant was that we would eat the filet mignon part tonight, and the narrow end could be sliced thin for steak sandwiches later in the week.
I would have loved to let the cooking stop at 125 degrees, and watch the juices flow. But the rest of the audience eats well done. I have an idea wife and daughter, the latter with a very likeable boyfriend, and God sent them to me so he could torture me a little with their uniform taste for well-done everything. In fact, they were going after the extra-well-done narrow end. Oh, well. They raved. "A fantastic steak!" said Mary Ann. That's a reward unto itself.
So is the idea of prime beef at $15 a pound.
