Photos: My Beef Tenderloin (Filet Mignon) Cedar Plank Salmon

Saturday night we had a back to college cookout for my nice and nephew. My brother in law bought a beef tenderloin (which is what you slice filet mignon from), and we cooked it up.

We sliced off all excess fat, and the the side "rope", known as the chain. Now tenderloin is a very lean cut of meat, hardly any marbling inside, and not much taste on it's own. So I always felt it's up to us bbq cooks to add flavor either to the center or the outside. I used my cutom blended beef base and beef au jus marinade injection, and we injected the filet in about a dozen spots. I also like to build up a bark on the outside of my meat, which is loaded with flavor. I added my hickory molasses char crust to build up a crust on the outside.

First shot here shows the whole tenderloin in the pan with the chain cut off. We still cook the chain and slice it up to small pieces to serve as an appetizer leading up to the main course. After injecting the tenderloin, we wrapped bacon on one half, and left the other half exposed to see if there was any difference in moisture, texture, and rendering of fat. The purpose of the bacon is to render some fat juices to self baste the outside of the tenderloin and keep it moist and from drying out during the cook.





We cooked the tenderloin at about 280 degrees for 2 hours in the pan, with indirect heat, then we let the tenderloin rest in th epan outside the grill, wrapped with foild for 20 minutes, to allow juices to get back to the cente rof the meat. Then the last 15 minutes we put the tenderloin directly on the grill over high heat, flipping it over. We also marinated, and cooked some sirloin steaks. These had been marinated in olive oil and fresh crushed garlic for a few hours before we cooked them. I added my hickory molasses char crust to build up a crust on the outside. I do this on all my steaks


We also cooked Cedar Plank Salmon. This is my favorite method of cooking salmon, because the cedar plank gives off a delicious sweet almost buttery wooden smoke taste to the salmon, whihc is a light smoke taste that does not over power the meat at all. We brined it first for 2 hours in my home made brine solution in the fridge. Then coat it with olive oil, salt, and pepper. My in laws only had this old bottle of ugly brown paprika. I prefer to use nice fresh red paprika, it makes all the difference in the world in appearance of the meat,as you want a nice red powder look on top of the brilliant orange/pink color of the salmon. So their paprika left it looking not so great, but it still tasted awesome and was a major hit at our bbq. 15 minutres before the salmon is done, I brush on my glaze and let it slightly carmelize. Delicious!

The finished product:

Very nice, Jeff! The finished beef and salmon both have great color!

And... Ummm... How do we get an invite to these parties???

Really good looking food, I would take my steak a weeeeee bit more cooked, not to much but slightly more.


The "Chains" are they the filet tips?

Now that is what I call surf and turf. I'll have to make sure you have my address for the next time

Jim

Looks killer! Nice job!

BTW, have you started checking your Christmas lights yet? You probably need to start checking them now since Christmas is only 5 months away!

I like it! I really like the color on the tenderloin.