Roast Beef Tenderloin, seared then oven roasted, served with mushrooms sautéed in the pan drippings with butter and herbs.
There are two kinds of special meals—those that take all day to make and require meticulous attention to detail lest you mess them up, and those that are easy and relatively foolproof, but are still delicious crowd pleasers.
You can guess which one I prefer.
Here is a perfect example of the latter—a beef tenderloin roast. Imagine a filet mignon, but as roast, one that you slice to serve, tender like a prime rib, but lean. Yes it is a rather pricey cut of beef; it is not an every day roast, but one for a special somebody or occasion.
My friend Kathi showed me this way of preparing beef tenderloin the other day. She loves preparing it for catering events because it holds up well, is delicious even at room temperature, and everyone loves it.
Rather than serving the roast with a gravy, we surround it with mushrooms that have been sautéed in the roast browning pan with some butter, shallots, garlic, and herbs.
Do have a favorite way of cooking beef tenderloin roast? If so, please let us know about it in the comments!
Roast Beef Tenderloin with Sautéed Mushrooms Recipe
- Prep time: 15 minutes
- Cook time: 45 minutes
- Yield: Serves 4
Beef tenderloin is a beautiful, tender cut of beef and is what is used to make filet mignon. To make a roast from the tenderloin you can ask your butcher to cut a big center piece from a whole tenderloin, or purchase a whole tenderloin and cut it yourself for this purpose, saving the rest for filet mignon. You can find whole beef tenderloin at Costco or Sam’s Club for a reasonable price.
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 to 2 pound piece of beef tenderloin (preferably a piece cut from the center of the tenderloin), trimmed of excess fat and silverskin
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon coarse black pepper
- 1 1/2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 pound cremini mushrooms, sliced into 1/8 to 1/4-inch thick slices
- 3 Tbsp butter
- 1 teaspoon salt (use 1/2 teaspoon if using salted butter)
- 2 Tbsp minced shallots
- 2 Tbsp minced garlic
- 1 1/2 teaspoons of Herbs de Provence or a teaspoon of dried tarragon
Method
1 Salt and pepper roast, let sit at room temp: Remove roast from refrigerator 1 to 2 hours before cooking so that it has time to come close to room temperature. Sprinkle all sides with salt and pepper and set aside.
2 Sear roast on stovetop: When ready to cook the tenderloin roast, preheat oven to 425°F. Heat olive oil in a cast iron or thick-bottomed sauté pan that can take the heat, on high heat. When the oil is hot, place the roast in the pan and brown it on all sides, including the ends, about 10 minutes.
3 Finish cooking in oven: When sufficiently browned, remove the roast from the pan (do not clean out the pan) and place on a roasting pan.
Place in the oven and roast at 425F until the internal temperature is 130°F for rare (140°F for medium), about 20 minutes (or longer if your roast wasn’t at room temp to begin with. Use a meat thermometer!
4 Let roast rest before slicing: Remove from oven and loosely tent with foil to rest for 15 to 20 minutes before slicing.
5 Sauté shallots, garlic, mushrooms: While the roast is resting, prepare the mushrooms. Add 3 Tbsp of butter to the same pan you used to sear the beef roast. Heat on medium heat to melt the butter. Add the minced shallots and garlic, and cook for half a minute.
Stir the mushrooms into the pan and cook until they start to give off steam. Then add salt, pepper, and herbs de provence. Continue to cook until just cooked through.
Add a few tablespoons of warm water to the pan to scrape up any remnants from the bottom of the pan (can also use white wine or marsala). Remove from heat.
6 Slice the roast: Use a sharp knife to slice the roast across the grain into 1/4 to 1/2-inch thick slices. Serve with the sautéed mushrooms.
