Beef Tenderloin

This dish is a prime example of how a cooking technique—in this case, charring peppers over an open flame—adds fabulous flavor to a dish without one bit of fat, sugar, carbohydrate, or salt.

If you are looking to save a few bucks and a little time, you can buy 2 pounds of pepper steak strips and cut that into bite-size pieces. The beef won’t be quite as tender but the flavor will be great.

I came up with this one because we always have sweet vermouth on hand to make Manhattans, but we use it for nothing else. It’s a big bottle. This sauce is so good that we may actually need to get another bottle one day soon! (Who knew you could make such a sexy meal so simply? Hey, there are some things you should never be too tired for, wink-wink, nudge-nudge!)

This is definitely a special-occasion meal, but it is so easy to do, and you can “grill” it all year round! I like to use ridged cast-iron grill pans to do everything from hamburgers to tenderloin steaks. I preheat the pan in the oven using the regular bake setting. Once it’s preheated, I set the oven to convection roast or convection broil and use tongs to transfer the meat to the hot grill pan. Turn it over halfway through cooking to get grill marks on both sides. At the same time I bake thick-cut potatoes in a roasting pan on a lower oven rack. Add a simple green salad to the menu and serve with crusty bread.

Roast beef tenderloin is a special-occasion meat even though it is about the simplest cut to prepare. Here’s the basic method plus a wonderful variation.

In this version of carbonade, the beef-and-wine dish that is a hallmark of Valdostana cuisine, the principal elements are cooked independently. First, you prepare the sauce, cooking red wine with aromatic vegetables and herbs until complex in flavor and highly concentrated. Later, the beef tenderloin, the filetto, is skillet-roasted (on the stovetop) until crusted and caramelized outside and juicy inside—a simple cooking method that takes barely 15 minutes. Before serving, you deglaze the empty skillet with the wine sauce and blend in the butter. It is only on the serving platter that the beef and wine come together, yet the pairing is perfect. I particularly like this separately cooked wine sauce because it is as good with other meats as it is with the filetto. Try it with roasts, such as loin of pork or rabbit, or with game, such as tenderloin of venison or elk, seared like the beef tenderloin here.

Lightly salting a center-cut tenderloin, a.k.a. chateaubriand, overnight allows the salt to penetrate this luxurious roast and keep it extra-flavorful and juicy.

Chef Graham Elliot, of restaurants Graham Elliot and Grahamwich in Chicago, shared this recipe as part of a Tree-Trimming Party Menu he created exclusively for Epicurious. The hearty winter dish conjures memories of childhood, with a comforting mix of red meat, mushrooms, cream, and dumplings. If you need to save time, store-bought egg noodles can be used as a substitute for the spaetzle. Black trumpet mushrooms tend to be very dirty from the forest floor. They should be rinsed multiple times before being considered clean. Once rinsed and cleaned, let them rest and drain on a rack or dry towel.

Thick, herby chimichurri is a great sauce to add to your cooking repertoire. Serve it with grilled meats or sausages, toss it with roasted potatoes, brush it on bread before grilling, or pair it with fried eggs.

Valley Center, California
In 1998, Ellen Sullivan purchased land in Northern San Diego County, California, named it The Lavender Fields, and planted, grew, and harvested fields of lavender. She also searched for culinary uses for the plant, which is still considered more of an aromatic flower than a herb. "The first modern culinary use I saw was a chef's recipe for lavender crème brûlée, and that got me thinking. Lavender's flavor is both tangy and floral, so it works as well in savory dishes as it does in sweet ones—I love what it does to beef tenderloin." This recipe remains one of Ms. Sullivan's favorite company meals.

This is one of our favorite ways to plank meat, especially boneless steaks and chops. We grill one side of the meat to give it the direct flame and char that tastes and looks so good, then we slide the uncooked side of the steak directly onto the plank. The result is a great contrast in textures, with the seared crisp char on one side and the tender woodsiness on the other side. We also add smoke flavor to this recipe, but you can omit the smoke if you want. The porcini slather makes a little more than 3/4 cup, and it will keep refrigerated for up to 1 week. You will need only half of it for this recipe, so save the rest to use another time on pork chops or chicken. It's also great as a dipping sauce for bread. Suggested plank: 1 cedar or oak grilling plank, soaked in water for at least 1 hour
Suggested wood: Apple, oak, or pecan chips

Unlike their cousin the blueberry—which is sometimes used in savory cooking, although almost never successfully—cranberries are not at all sweet and so make a much more natural companion for meat. One trick I’ve learned over the years is that dusting the meat with a sprinkling of sugar makes the browning process go much more rapidly and leaves behind a caramelized residue that lends a great complexity to the final dish. It’s not an appropriate trick for every occasion, but it’s perfect for this gutsy, appealing, and unusual pot roast. Most pot roasts depend mightily for their flavor on the juices exuded by the meat itself, but since the meat’s contribution here is minimized by the powerful cranberry-based combination, a faster-cooking cut like tenderloin works perfectly, reducing the cooking time to just over an hour.

Potatoes are finely cut into small cubes, then cooked risotto-style.

Here, handsome and crowd-pleasing beef tenderloin is first rubbed with an Indian-inspired combination of spices—cardamom, mustard, and others work in concert with the nuanced heat of black peppercorns—and then seared to form a fragrant, inviting crust. Finishing it in a moderate oven results in a roast that is evenly rosy, juicy, and as delicious as it is beautiful. Like the bulgur with herbs and the bevy of beans and basil , it can be served at room temperature.

The bright, acidic flavor of these quickly pickled vegetables would also marry well with salmon, chicken, or pork.