Worst Cooks in America Recipes Beef Tenderloin With Crab and Asparagus

I saw this on Worst Cooks in America.  The original recipe is Tyler Florence's.  Of course I didn't leave it alone.  First of all, his recipe serves 2.  2!  There are 3 humans in this house and one is a growing teenager.  He can eat what's considered 2 servings by himself easily and usually does.  I have to admit, I was a little intimidated by this one.  Beef tenderloin is what they cut into small pieces and call filet mignon.  Not an inexpensive dinner and the technique needed to cut the "log" of beef so that you can get it to lay flat… yea, wasn't too sure about that either, but – as you can see, it turned out ok.  Fortunately for me, I didn't have the chef that came up with the recipe judging my plating!  He might have been annoyed that I changed the recipe too.  This is also what I consider a weekend meal.  It's not exactly quick and easy which is what I require for a weeknight meal.  Cooking WITH my dear husband, not just for him – bonus!  Make sure you have butcher's twine (100% cotton string – NO NYLON! It will melt into your food and who wants to eat that?)

Beef:

1 ½ pounds imitation crab

½ cup mayonnaise& ½ cup light of fat free mayo (total of 1 cup)

1 bunch chives, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic crushed with garlic press

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 lemon, juiced

3 lbs beef tenderloin, trimmed of silver skin

6 to 8 thin asparagus, ends trimmed

Olive oil, for searing

Rosemary Potatoes:

Kosher salt

16 new or baby potatoes (or how many will fit on your cookie sheet)

Olive oil

1/2 bunch rosemary

Parmesan cheese

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Bearnaise:

1/4 cup champagne vinegar

1/4 cup white wine

2 medium shallots, minced

1 bay leaf

1 bunch tarragon

3 egg yolks

1 stick butter, melted

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Put the potatoes in a pot with salted water, bring up to a boil and cook until fork tender, about 10 minutes.

While they're cooking, chop the crabmeat and place in a bowl. Add the mayonnaise, chives, garlic, salt, pepper and lemon. Mix and refrigerate until ready to use.

Drain and cool the potatoes so you can handle them. Drizzle the cookie sheet with olive oil. Using your potato masher or a fork, smash the potatoes until they break apart slightly. Drizzle with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, parmesan cheese and rosemary. Pop into oven on bottom shelf they'll be ready in about 45 minutes.

Make a shallow cut lengthwise into the beef and then continue cutting along the curve, until the beef is a flat sheet. Sprinkle the beef with salt and pepper. Spread the crab mixture in an even layer on the beef, then place the asparagus lengthwise over the crab with the tips poking out. Roll up the beef to make a pinwheel, then use butchers twine to tie it together in 1-inch increments. Heat an ovenproof saute pan over high heat and add some oil. Sear the beef on all sides, then transfer the pan to the oven (with the potatoes) and cook until the internal temperature hits 130 degrees F, 30 minutes. Remove the meat from the pan and rest on a cutting board before slicing.

In a small saucepan set over medium-high heat, combine the vinegar, wine, shallots, bay leaf and half of the tarragon. Bring to a simmer and cook until reduced by half. Remove from the heat and pour through a fine mesh sieve into a small bowl to strain out the solids. Set the bowl aside for now.

In your hot pot, melt the stick of butter – the pot will be hot enough make sure the burner is turned off! When butter is melted add the yolks and the vinegar reduction. Use a whisk until you get the sauce to emulsify then season with salt and pepper. Set aside in a warm spot to hold the sauce.

Ready?  Here we go!

Here I am again with the imitation crab meat.  Please, if you live in a coastal area and you can get fresh crab, by all means do!  I felt that the tenderloin was a splurge, so I went with this, plus, honestly the crab I could find was pre-cooked and frozen.  We just won't go into how sad that is.

Have you realized yet that these photos seem like they were taken on different days?  They were!  This was the first night, too much lemon and no garlic, not as good, sorry Tyler.  We were so excited to try this we got started and then realized that the only string we had was nylon.  BOO.  Hence my note to be sure you have cotton string on hand before you get started.  So, the men in the house were super happy, beef two nights in a row.  Oh, my!

Now, into the fridge… and onto the beef.  Your potatoes are probably done, go ahead smash, season and pop them into the oven (that you have pre-heated to 425)

These are oh, so yummy!  And not at all what Tyler's recipe called for.  I have to give The Pioneer Woman (Ree) credit for these.  This is not exactly her recipe, but it's very close.  She calls them crash hot potatoes.  I call them delicious.

I tried to get a good picture of "silver skin" There's fat that will get trimmed also.  He's using paper towel because the meat is wet and slippery, removing the silver skin this way makes a tearing sound.

In case you're wondering these gloves are cut resistant gloves, but nothing is fool proof, so be careful with those knives!

Almost flat!

OK – here's what happens when you accidentally cut too deep.  Do not panic, no one's perfect, right? It get's rolled and tied up…. it'll be alright.

Salt and fresh ground pepper.  If you don't have a pepper grinder, invest in one if you're able.  The taste difference between freshly ground and the stuff that's been sitting around is night and day!

This is what I've learned… you grab the asparagus on each end and bend until it snaps, that's your natural cut line.  Now you can just use a knife and dispatch the rest at once.  Don't throw away the parts you trimmed!  Toss into a plastic bag and into the freezer.  You'll be glad when you make a "use up" veggie soup.  Guess I'll have to write down that recipe now.

Spread the crab mix on the beef, then lay your asparagus so it sticks out one end.  Now we roll.

Start slow, be patient.  It's not as hard as you might think.

Ok, I'm fairly sure that by laying the roll seam side down I could have tied this off myself, but as I said I was lucky enough to be cooking with hubby, I held it and he tied it.  *careful not to tie too tightly, if you pull it tight, it will cause all that lovely stuffing to squish out the end.

See the stuffing falling out the side there?  That's the accidental too deep cut, but it's ok, it held together enough and doesn't effect the taste.

Ok, so I'm only being semi ironic with the wine glass.  The recipe called for dry white wine, but I don't like dry white wine.  I like sweet white wines.  Cooking RULE NUMBER ONE (there really aren't too many rules but…)  Only cook with wine you like the taste of.  When you use wine in cooking you generally only concentrate the flavor so if you don't like it out of the bottle, you won't like your food!

Ok, Lara what are you doing?  Saving my egg whites.  When you have to use only the yolks in something don't toss those whites!  They're all ready for an egg white omelette in the morning which will make me feel less guilty about the rich sauce that goes with this dinner.

So this is the wine, vinegar, shallot, tarragon and bay leaf.  It didn't take long to reduce by half, just a couple of minutes.  The straining out the solids and tossing them bummed me out but I suppose you could save them (except for the bay leaf) and use them in that omelette too.

See how the sauce is clinging to the side of the pot?  That's what it looks like when it has "come together" the way you need it to.  That's it!

Dinner is ready!  And….

Lunches are packed.  No complaints about these "leftovers"!

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Source: https://livingbylara.wordpress.com/2016/05/29/crab-stuffed-beef-tenderloin-with-rosemary-potatoes-and-bernaise/

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