Thursday, September 2, 2010

Filet mignon sandwich with truffle butter

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Open-faced filet mignon sandwiches with truffle butter (photo by the adorable La Fuji Mama)

If you arrived here from the Trufflepalooza article in the Los Angeles Times, welcome! I'm so glad you stopped by! - Erika

If I had to pick my favorite dish from Trufflepalooza, I think it would be this open-faced filet mignon sandwich with truffle butter. 

At the original Trufflepalooza in 2009, I sauteed filet mignon chunks in butter and served them with grated truffle on top - delicious, but extremely ugly and hard to photograph. The next year, knowing lots of my food blogger friends (love you all!) would be taking pictures of the 13 different truffled menu items, I took aesthetics into account. 

My capable husband grilled the filet mignon just as the party was starting. Filet mignon from...Costco. What can I say? When you need 15 pounds of meat, Whole Foods isn't an option, at least not on my budget. Although, to tell the truth, we bought too much. We would have been fine with six or seven pounds. Live and learn, live and learn.

By the time we were slicing the meat, buttering the bread and assembling the open-faced sandwiches, the filet mignon was warm, not hot. That worked in our favor: The meat had rested adequately and stayed extremely moist. It was cooked perfectly - well, most of it, anyway. The first one I cut into didn't show much pink, and I think I bellowed at my poor husband pretty forcefully. But I overreacted. The rest was fine.

I need to remember to serve these earlier in the party; we always have more leftovers of this dish than I expect. But leftovers can be good, as in the hot filet mignon and truffled Brie sandwiches I made with one year's leftovers. Also, when we ran out of truffle butter one year, the die-hards still hanging around the kitchen decided to try the same sandwiches with Sabatino truffle honey. In case you were wondering: phenomenal.


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Filet mignon sandwiches with truffle butter
An open-faced sandwich you'll never forget. Don't worry if you can't get fresh truffles (or can't afford them) - the truffle butter, truffle oil and truffle salt bring enough truffle flavor to the party.
Ingredients
Instructions
Heat up your grill (gas or charcoal, no matter) or heat a heavy ridged grill pan on the stove. You don't want to get it blazing - filet mignon is on the delicate side. I like filet mignon cooked over a medium grill.Sprinkle the filets with salt and pepper. Grill until medium rare. I use an instant-read meat thermometer and pull the steaks when the middles reach 125 degrees (F); by the time they cool, they'll be up to 130 degrees and perfectly pink throughout. Let the filets cool on a plate or cutting board, loosely tented with foil, until they are warm but not hot, about half an hour. While the steaks are cooking and cooling, cut the baguette into 1/4-inch slices. You should get about 30 for a standard baguette. I love La Brea Bakery baguettes, which are also conveniently available (freshly baked!) at our local Costco. Lay the bread slices out on a large board and spread each with a thin layer of truffle butter.Now cut the filets into thin slabs that will more or less fit on the baguette slices. Lay one slice of meat on each piece of buttered bread. Sprinkle each piece with a few drops of truffle oil and a pinch of truffle salt. Grate the fresh truffle over the whole thing and serve. It's the best finger food you can imagine.
Details
Prep time: Cook time: Total time: Yield: about 30 pieces

7 comments:

Julie @ Willow Bird Baking said...

Oh, wow, this looks decadent and amazing!

Monet said...

So I eat a mainly vegetarian diet (like 98 percent) but this would be one meal that I wouldn't be able to pass up. I would eat this in a flash. It looks so delicious!

Erika Kerekes said...

@Julie - decadent is absolutely right.

@Monet - if you are going to splurge on meat, this is what you want to splurge on. FOR SURE.

Rachael Hutchings said...

This was definitely my favorite too, besides the salad! Those 2 dishes I could eat OVER and OVER and OVER . . . yeah well, uh, you get the point! :)

Barbara | VinoLuciStyle said...

Breakfast time and now I'm dying for a steak!

As an avowed Costcoaholic...I see no shame in choosing their product over Whole Foods...in fact very wise choice!

Erika Kerekes said...

@Barbara - I'm dying for a steak, too, and it's 9am here. Bummer for both of us.

Emergency Mom said...

If you don't have truffles, use Aux Délices des Bois Black and White Truffle Butters. Check out winewoot.com today-it's the only product they sell today. Or transatlanticfoods.com. See on Amazon.com

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