Bar BQ Grills

Have you ever made one of those recipes where at the beginning, you question the quantities of on or more ingredients? And then during the process, you question the quantities of on or more ingredients?

Roasted Beef Tenderloin with Smoky Tomato-Chili Salsa from Wolfgang Puck's Live, Love, Eat! was one of those for me last week. The quantities of the liquids for the salsa seemed ridiculously out of proportion. Fortunately, Alexis and I adjusted on the fly and ended up salvaging the salsa by adding more chunky ingredients to balance out the soupy mess into a reasonable salsa.

The end result was a buttery tender beef roast and a flavor filled salsa that were a food marriage made in heaven.

Perhaps there was a conversion error when they were writing the book. Maybe they just had huge roma tomatoes. Either way, Puck can cook circles around me and it is still a good cook book. I've had it for 5 years or so and everything else I have made from it has been quite good. 

Here is what we ended up doing.

Inspired by Live, Love, Eat! By Wolfgang Puck

2 lb beef tenderloin roast (I used a center cut section)

1 Tbsp Dead End BBQ beefrub (sub 1.5 tsp salt, 1 tsp black pepper, ½ tsp garlic powder)

10 small Roma tomatoes, cored

1 small onion, sliced

2 ea chipotle, seeded and diced

½ cup basil, chopped

6 cloves garlic

¼ cup lime juice

¼ cup balsamic vinegar

2 tsp sugar

2 tsp salt

½ tsp black pepper

½ cup olive oil

Prepare grill for direct heat at 400f or medium high heat. Roast the tomatoes, onion slices and garlic, turning every few minutes until the onions are tender and the tomatoes and garlic are blackened and blistered. Remove from heat and let cool. Cut your grill heat to 250f and set up for indirect heat.

Meanwhile, whisk the lime juice, balsamic vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper together. Slowly add in the oil while you continue to whisk.

Chop the veggies once cooled. Add the chipotle and basil, tossing to mix. Add the liquid mixture until you have the consistency you want for the salsa.

Rub your beef tenderloin with the beef rub and cook over indirect heat (250f as previously noted) until it reaches the internal temperature for the degree of doneness you want. I wanted medium rare so I was shooting for 125f to 130f. This took almost exactly one hour on my Big Green Egg but go by temps, not times.

Change your grill to a direct heat set up and bring the grill heat to 450-500f. Now grill the roast directly over the heat source for about 1 minute per side just to get a darker browning for the outer crust. Let rest for at least 15 minutes. I had a little of the liquid left from the salsa mix and brushed it on as a glaze during the rest.

Slice and serve with the salsa.

We annihilated this dish. There was NOTHING left between the four of us. The salsa is not your normal tomato salsa since it uses basil instead of cilantro and has balsamic vinegar added.  But it is perfectly paired with the normally bland but tender beef fillet. It acts more as a "sauce-ah" than a salsa.

The benefit of the “reverse sear” technique is obvious in the picture above.  Instead of having varying degrees of doneness, the roast is medium rare almost all the way through.

So back to my question, have you ever had one of those recipes where you just KNEW one of the quantities was wrong before you started?

Don't forget, if you need ideas or recipes for the grill this 4th of July - check out Grilling.com.