We splurge on filet mignon a few times a year, it’s the most expensive cut of steak because it’s incredibly tender and you can only get about 9 filets per cow. Instead of buying the filet mignon piece by piece, we always get the entire tenderloin and spend the time to carve it up ourselves for a 50% price savings.
But how to do transform a whole tenderloin, which is as big as a bodybuilder’s forearm, into pretty, petite filet mignon? Well, Pat the butcher from my local Sweetbay Supermarket will show you how. I’m working with Sweetbay to get y’all to eat more Black Angus Beef! 🙂
How to Trim Tenderloin
Trimming tenderloin is actually a lot easier than you think. In fact, it’s easier than any other steak cut, mainly because the size is manageable (have you seen a how massive the rib roast is!?) and the meat is so tender you barely have to put any strength into carving. By the way, if you’re not into carving this up yourself, just ask the butcher at Sweetbay to do it for you, free of charge.
This is a whole tenderloin. It comes wrapped and sealed to keep its shape and freshness. Don’t open the package until you’re ready to carve. If you’re carving this up yourself, take note that there’s quite a bit of blood inside the bag. What I like to do is to open just one end of the bag and let the blood drain into the sink first before taking the tenderloin out.
There’s a small end and a large end. We’ll start cutting from the bigger end. When you get down to the smaller end, you can make smaller filet mignon pieces and use twine to tie 2 of them together to make a bigger piece. When it gets too small, Pat will grind the remainder with the scraps for filet mignon ground beef. Another option is to use the smaller pieces for a stir fry or stroganoff.
Pat begins cutting 1¾” thick slices from the larger end. You can cut yours smaller if you wish.
Here’s a cut for you to look at. Notice there’s fat around the filet, that’s okay, Pat will trim that off later. This was my biggest lesson – I used to trim the fat and the silver skin off the tenderloin FIRST, which made a massive mess and wasted too much good meat.
Once all the pieces have been cut, Pat trims each one carefully, taking off majority of the fat and the thick, tough silver skin.
Look how perfect this is. And the size! You get massive cuts.
We got nine 1¾” large filet mignon from the tenderloin.
The leftover scraps – including the fat – will go into the grinder. Again, if you prefer to use these as-is, cut them into smaller pieces and use them in stir fries!
Into the grinder it goes and now I’ve got 4 pounds of the very best filet mignon ground beef. Use this ground beef for any dish that you want – though meatballs and burgers don’t work very well. The filet mignon ground beef is so lean that it will have trouble binding together. I see some Asian Lettuce Cups with Ground Beef in my future!
I’ve just saved nearly 50% and will have a freezer full of filet mignon (I’ll seal each filet mignon individually).
Peppercorn Crusted Filet Mignon with Balsamic Red Wine Sauce
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
- 1/4 cup red wine
- 1/2 cup beef broth
- salt
- 3 tablespoons whole peppercorn
- 1 tablespoon cooking oil
- 4 pieces Filet Mignon (at least 1¼” inch thick)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400F.
- Heat a saucepan with the butter, balsamic vinegar over medium heat. When the balsamic begins to bubble, turn the heat down to medium-low and cook for 3 minutes to reduce to half. Add in the red wine and the beef broth and let simmer for 5-8 minutes until reduces to a sauce thick enough to coat back of spoon. Taste and season with salt.
- Place the peppercorns in a baking sheet. Use a heavy bottomed skillet to gently crush the peppercorns by pressing the bottom of the skillet on top of the peppercorns using a rocking motion.
- Rub each filet mignon lightly with the cooking oil. Season each filet mignon with salt on both sides and then press the filet mignon onto the peppercorns on both sides.
- Heat large oven-proof skilling on high heat. When very hot, add the filet mignon, searing both sides for 1 minute each. Remove the filet mignon from the heat and onto the baking sheet (it’s okay if there’s still peppercorn on the baking sheet). Place into oven for 4-7 minutes, depending on your desired doneness and thickness of filet mignon.
- For 1-inch filet mignon: 4 minutes and then check temperature with meat thermometer. For every ¼” more, add 1 minute.Rare: 120F-125FMedium-Rare: 130F-135FMedium: 140F-145F
- Let rest for 3 minutes before serving with the Balsamic Sauce.
Did you try this recipe? Please leave a star rating in the recipe card below and leave a review in the comment section! I always appreciate your feedback and I know other readers do, too!
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Love filet mignon. I like to serve them with Marchand de Vin sauce. So classic, so good.
Thanks for step-by-step cleaning process pics. These look so delicious and simple, too!.
Oh..Forgot to mention….Try this with girolle, chanterelle or cêpe mushrooms sautéed in shallots, garlic with a parsley garnish…and you will not be sorry!..I also added a celeriac/celery root purée on the side …An extremely low carb side dish to please the Paleo palate!!!
I made this Sunday night…and it was the BOMB!!!!…Rave reviews from my food critic/gastronomically-centered family!¨..The technique was perfectfully explained/presented…Cooking time = perfection as well!..The tri-colored pepper and the wine/balsamic reduction took a bit of time to get it to that coveted syrupy consistency…but it was well worth it..I simply cannot say enough about this recipe..JUST DO IT…RUN to the kitchen and make this if you are in the need of culinary compliments..Thank you SO MUCH for sharing this wonder!
He absolutely loved it! Was so beautiful and tender, we’ve still been eating the leftovers. I served it with the sauteed mushrooms on top of the steak, and then the sauce, added steamed greens (asparagus, brocollini etc) and a light, fluffy (dairy/gf) mashed potato. It was the first time I’d cooked and eaten venison (old favourite of his) and it’s already cemented it’s place as a favourite recipe 🙂
How do you think this would go with venison instead of beef? And what greens or sides would you serve it with?
I think it would be lovely with venison. Sauteed mushrooms!
Woo…delicious. Steak again. What a good lesson for me…I am learning…. Hope will have good steak to eat at home soon… 🙂
I love my steak
Excellent recipe and excellent website! What a fun way to get educated. Love the photography! For the record, you would actually get about 18 steaks from an animal, 9 from each side…but never enough :-).
I always grind my tenderloin scraps for excellent ground beef.
This is typically how I buy filets. Then when I get them cut up, I wrap a piece of bacon around them and freeze them. Joie, I’ve run into that same issue before, so I’ve been trying to buy from a little higher quality grocer than my grocery store. I just watch for them on sale, then make a special trip across town to buy them.
I swore off alcohol a long time ago (long story) and have no alcohol in my home. Before then, I never even touched red/white wine…just hard liquor. Someone told me never to buy the supermarket “cooking wine” or any of the store brand, private selection brands that they have for cooking. So, I am clueless what type of red wine kind I buy for cooking. I don’t want to get a bad wine because that would totally ruin the filet mignon. Any suggestions?
And is it easier to freeze the meat a little before cutting so that it’ll be easier to cut and handle? I’m so klutzy that if I try to cut it like in the pictures I will probably chop off my hand.
wooh. mouth-watering food!! i will try it.
also check this out folks http://www.filipinorecipe-tv.com the best filipino recipe ever! oh so yummy!
This has my name written all over it. To TheGoodSoup, I’ve eaten beef in the US and now in Australia and Australian beef never ever requires a steak knife. Just keep eating 🙂
That sounds pretty good.
My man will love this! Thanks!
What a fabulous demonstration- a cook after my own heart! I love this sort of detailed advice. I’m completely new to your site (found you from Wok in Time) and am so pleased to be here. Tell me, what is it about Angus Beef that is so good? I’m an organic, grass fed beef eater, and in Australia, Angus is a popular breed, but isn’t always grass fed. Often, actually, it’s feed lotted (grain fed). Is this the case where you’re from?
This intrigues me as I can control portion sizes, save $$$ and have quality meats. Had a bad experience with a retail store recently offering bargain prices on what they said was filet mignon but one had gristle in the center that made it inedible, and another was those pieces you spoke of. No bargain if you can’t eat it!
Awesome! I cooked a whole tenderloin before and trimmed it myself. http://cookieloveseating.blogspot.com/2011/03/beef-sessions-3-ragin-cajun-edition.html This was neat to learn a totally different way to trim the delicious meat! Thanks for sharing.
This is amazing. I learned so much from this post. I am hoping our local guy will do this for me. I like the idea of using the ground for bolognese. Thanks so much for sharing with us. Wish this place was here locally.
Looks delicious. Thanks for step-by-step cleaning process pics. No waste at all. That’s sounds good to me. Will try this over the weekend.
Sounds divine. We just recently starting cooking more steak at home since it’s so much more affordable and makes a great date night in.
Beautiful meat! At least the scraps were used to make ground meat. No waste, great.
Cheers,
Rosa
How much was that tenderloin?