Beef tenderloin recipes A whole roasted beef tenderloin is an ideal centerpiece for an easy and elegant company dinner. Sweet onions are first cooked on top of the stove, then used as a roasting rack. The roast is done in a relatively short time. A sweet, amber Madeira provides complexity and flavor to the sauce. A tawny port can be substituted if the Madeira is unavailable.–Editors from Williams Sonoma No more worrying how your centerpiece for a fancy meal is going to turn out. This beef tenderloin recipe is eminently reliable, requires no last-minute fussing, and doesn’t ambush you with carving trickery. It’s just a simple, supple roast beef tenderloin napped with a slightly boozy but really well-balanced sauce. And it’s as easy as it is impressive.
If you want to spend a little extra time with your easy Christmas Eve Dinner, you can make it extra special. Pastry-wrapped beef can be prepared in 20 minutes and on the table in 45. Sear two beef tenderloin or mock tenderloin steaks over high heat for a few minutes with a half pound of mushrooms and two tablespoons butter. Use thawed, pre-purchased puff pastry sheets cut into quarters to wrap the beef with the mushrooms. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Much simpler than a traditional Beef Wellington, but still tasty and just as filling for Christmas Eve dinner.
The classic recipe calls for tenderloin of beef coated with mushroom duxelle to be wrapped in puff pastry and baked. That all seemed too daunting because of the thought of making puff pastry. Then the light went on and I realized that I can by frozen sheets of puff pastry, inexpensive, and frozen puff pastry is very easy to handle, even for a klutz like me. Duxelle is easy to make. It’s easy to bake the whole thing. So now there’s nothing to stop me from making Beef Wellington. It certainly has a WOW factor and it is festive food.
