Chateaubriand: a name, a guarantee. This fine cut of beef is perfect for making elegant and refined second courses with a very simple cooking on the grill, in a pan or in the oven. We offer you today a classic of French cuisine, chateaubriand with Béarnaise sauce, a delicate and creamy sauce made with egg yolks, clarified butter and an infusion of shallots, tarragon, white wine, vinegar and water. The chateaubriand is a piece of meat that should be marinated for about 2 hours in the refrigeratorthen cooked in a pan with butter for 20 minutes maximum, so that the outside is characterized by a delicious crunchy crust and the inside remains rare. The chateaubriand with Béarnaise sauce can be accompanied by a glass of soft and structured white wine such as Friulian Pinot Gris or the Sweet Veroneseand become the star dish of a dinner with your guests.

Preparation

1

Degrease, if necessary, the beef fillet and place it in a large baking dish.

2

Grease it with extra virgin olive oil, add the salt and pepper and massage the meat to cover it evenly. Cover the pan with cling film and place the fillet to marinate for 2 hours in the refrigerator.

3

While the meat is marinating, prepare the Béarnaise sauce by mincing the tarragon and cutting the shallot into slices.

4

Pour 50 ml of water, the white wine and the vinegar into a saucepan, season with ground white pepper, salt, shallots and half of the previously minced tarragon.

5

Bring everything to a boil, reduce the heat to low and cook until the liquid has reduced to 1/3 of its initial volume. Let the infusion cool and filter the liquid with a fine-mesh strainer. Let cool.

6

Put a pan with water on the fire. Let it warm up over medium heat.

7

Meanwhile, pour the three egg yolks into a glass bowl and start beating with an electric mixer at medium speed. Slowly incorporate the infusion obtained previously, very cold, continuing to whisk until a frothy mixture is obtained.

8

Place the glass bowl with the mixture in the pan with the now hot water. Continue beating on medium speed while slowly pouring in the clarified butter.

9

The mixture you will obtain must be smooth and homogeneous, similar to eggnog. Pour it into another bowl to let it cool. Season with salt and pepper, add the remaining tarragon, mix and place in the refrigerator, covered with plastic wrap.

10

At this point the meat will be well marinated. Place a non-stick pan with the butter on the heat, letting it melt. When it is hot, lay the fillet on it.

11

Cook it over high heat on both sides so as to seal it so as not to let the juices out. Then continue cooking, basting the fillet with melted butter, until a golden crust has been created. Then cook for another 15 minutes on medium-high heat. (

12

Turn off the heat, let the meat rest for 15 minutes for the juices to redistribute inside. Slice the meat with a sharp knife and obtain slices about 1 cm thick. Plate up and serve with the Béarnaise sauce.

Advice and tips

The chateaubrand it is consumed blood. But if you don’t particularly like rare cooking, you can do it cook another 5 minutes to obtain medium cooking. If you have a cooking thermometer, for rare cooking, the core temperature of the meat it must be between 50 and 60°.

You can cook the meat in a pan as per the recipe or brown it and put it in the oven at 250°, 5 minutes on each side.

Ghee is easily available in supermarkets. Eventually it can be made at home by melting the butter over a very low heat for a few minutes, eliminating all the foamy part and saving only the white liquid.

Béarnaise sauce must be cooked in a bain-marie for the necessary time as indicated in the recipe, without raising the flame too much. Never stop stirring it, otherwise it will become a firm mixture with the consistency of an omelette.

storage

The chateaubriand with Béarnaise sauce should be eaten at the moment. It is not recommended to keep it both in the refrigerator and in the freezer.

History

The name “chateaubriand” derives from the French writer François René de Chateaubriand, for whom his personal chef, Montmireil, invented a type of cooking of the prized piece of beef fillet. Neither “The culinary guide” Of Auguste Escoffierthe cook reports that the chateaubriand should generally weigh between 400 and 500 grams, in order to have a uniform cooking, and that the ideal accompaniment are baked potatoes.