Thursday, November 13, 2008

That Cookbook Thing II - Tournedos Sautés Chasseur

We're back again for another installment of That Cookbook Thing II. To recap so far our little group has collectively cooked the following Julia Child et al recipes:
Soupe a l'Oignon Gratinee
Sauce au Cari
Rapee Morvandelle
Poulet au Porto

Tonight I'm sharing with you Julia's (et al) recipe for Tournedos Sautés Chasseur, also known as Filet Steaks with Mushroom and Madeira Sauce. I must have missed an email along the way, suddenly this week 3 of our group posted their thoughts on the recipe, and I hadn't given it a second of thought since mid-October!

I went out at lunch and bought the necessary ingredients today. I almost didn't go through with it as today was an a$$ kicking day at work, but mushrooms? steak? booze? butter? Who can say no?

Before we go Further, here's the recipe, over at Mikes: here!

Didja take a look? I made a couple of changes along the way:
1. I did not saute the bread rounds in butter. I toasted them in the toaster. I had planned on buttering them before plating, but I forgot. Which is probably a good thing for my butt.
2. I did not use a tournedo cut of beef. I was under a time constraint so I bought 2 nice looking tenderloin steaks, which is our favorite anyway.
3. I did not wrap the meat in fat. My body is already wrapped in fat. Enough said.
4. I used Sherry instead of Maderia. Because I had Sherry and I didn't have Maderia.
5. I forgot the parsley. I chopped it, but forgot to garnish. Ooops.

Here's a picture of the final plate:



ooooh, yeah! This was good, better than I expected. I hate, hate, HATE panfried steak, but in this case (perhaps because of the sauce?) you couldn't tell it was panfried. The sauce was completely delicious; I can imagine it would make almost anything taste yummy. Not only that, but it was actually a fairly quick dish. Once you've got everything ready to go (mise en place, baby!) dinner is only a few minutes away.

Please check out the rest of the groups efforts: Mike, and Ruth, Mary, Deborah, Mary, Shaun, Elle and Kittie.

And wish them luck in tackling the last recipe of our joint effort, as I'll be sitting it out. I'll be posting links to all their glorious posts though, so stay tuned!

Happy Friday!

8 comments:

Ruth Daniels said...

It certainly was an over the top dish and my wallet AND butt will take months to recover.

Between the poulet au porto and this...enough said!

But I must admit, it certainly was delicious.

Annie said...

That looks delicious...
I hate it when I go through the trouble of buying fresh parsley, wash it, dry it, chop it and then forget it!!!!

MyKitchenInHalfCups said...

Now why do we think we need another cook book when I should cook more from the ones I have. I can see from this and the poulet au porto, I should be checking with Julia more often.
I'm with you on the mushrooms, booze, butter and the steak (even if I only have a little). Great line on not wrapping the meat ;)

Anonymous said...

It really was a good dish, wasn't it? I knew it had to be for the same reasons you did (booze, butter, mushrooms, butter, booze, etc). I'm sorry you're going to miss the last one (my birthday dish) because it has one of my cooking favorites - FIRE!

Sara said...

Ruth - maybe one of us should have checked to see if Julia had any salad recipes in the book? ;)

Annie - i hardly ever garnish anything so when it try to do it, it almost always slips my mind.

Tanna - i know i have to keep exploring her books!

Mike - Can't wait to see how you and fire mix.

Valerie Harrison (bellini) said...

I remember watching Julia Child, The galloping Gourmet and Steve Yan on TV long before the Food Network..they were my inspiration I'm sure:D

Sara said...

Val, the Frugal Gourmet was my inspiration when I was little. Julia was way over my head!

Deborah said...

I loved this - although I agree, it's not something I'll be making on a regular basis.

Fire, straight ahead!