me make food

Dear almighty this was the best meal I have ever made, fillets with a peppercorn crust and a peppercorn cream sauce. I was afraid to drink anything after I ate it cuz it would wash the flavor out of my mouth.

Headed down to Ideal to get some fillets. They had two loins in the display case encased in plastic. One was Choice for $25 per LB, the other was lower grade at $11. I chose the spensy stuff and got two 6oz fillets for $17.

Of course Alton Brown provided the recipe, but I have had this dish at Billy’s and it is the only thing I have really liked there.

I headed to bed bath and beyond to pick up a good stainless steel saute pan. $25, and it is not too bad. Man they have $300 ones. Ummmmm…. not yet will I spend that on a pan.

So the goal was to cover some meat with some very coarse crushed black peppercorns and a bit of kosher salt and char the outsides. Well picked up some whole peppercorns and smashed them in a sammich bag to get them to the right size.

Needed some clarified butter to sear the steaks and avoid too much burning. This would be the first time I have made that. Took some unsalted butter and cooked it on low heat for 20 minutes which it seperated into the 3 layesr, whey foam on the top, the clarified butter, and the milk solids on the bottom. Skimmed the foam, and filtered the rest out with coffee filters.

Coated the fillets with the peppercorn chunks and some kosher salt.

Dropped some clarified butter in the skillet and dropped them encrusted fillets in there. They smoked up a storm and we were glad the fan was up to suck out the stank.

3 minutes on the first side and flip

Plugged a probe into into the fillet and put it in a toaster oven at 325 degrees to get them cooked.

Now to get on with the peppercorn sauce. I used a cup of low sodium beef beef broth and poured it in the pan and scraped all the little crunchies off, boiled it down to about 1/2 the volume.

So the only thickener is boiling it down and heavy whipping cream. Added another cup of liquid, heavy whipping cream.

let it simmer for about 10 minutes and let it thicken up a bunch. It smelled like heaven. Coated the back of the spoon and looked awesome.

I wanted mushrooms on mine so I sauted them up.

I blotted the butter grease to make this evil dish just a bit more healthy

I left the probe in the fillets to make sure the juice does not leak out. We got them to 160 degrees which would be medium. I would of liked them a little less done, but it did not matter cuz it ruled.

Covered with foil to let them rest.

The cream added a really sweet flavor to the sauce. The peppercorns did not over power it too much. I added no salt or pepper to this meal. Theresa made a Parmesan risotto with some Parmesan cheese shredded on the top of it and some dinner rolls.

I could eat this every day for the rest of my life. It was that good. We are gonna make it again for sure, and I would not change a single thing.

So good