“Travels” in Valle D’Aosta

I have not traveled in Valle D’Aosta, but in my effort to “see” every region of Italy through food while we’re still not traveling, I went looking for recipes from the region. Everything that I found seemed to include beef, or fontina cheese, or both, which makes sense given the location.

Because I felt like splurging a bit with this one, I went with a variation on beef tenderloin with red wine reduction. This dish brought back fond memories of a dinner party years ago. I was living in a tiny studio apartment with a miniscule, windowless kitchen that had only an electric, apartment-sized stove – you know the kind, the ones that technically have four burners, but there isn’t room for two pans next to each other. We had a group of friends – friends with whom we still get together – who would cook for each other, and being competitive sorts, we would always try to outdo each other. I had a holiday issue of Bon Appetit magazine, and it featured a tenderloin roast with red wine reduction. I went to a butcher and spent a month’s food budget on the roast, then to the wine shop and spent another month’s budget on the wines for the reduction and to drink with the meal. The meal was a raging success – one of the guests literally licked her plate.

Before we get to the recipe, I am going to digress to talk a bit more about that NYC studio apartment. Trust me when I say the kitchen was miniscule. That was where I learned to wash and put away every dish as I went – there was no place to set anything other than back into the tiny cupboards. That small space also saw an inordinate number of dinners with friends, parties, and overnight (for sometimes weeks at a time) guests. I have friends who have been married 20 years who met there. Another friend picked up the wash-as-you-go habit after crashing there for a couple weeks. I would never want to cook in that kitchen again, but having cooked so much for so many there, I feel like I could cook pretty much anywhere.

In any event, on to today’s recipe.

Without the ability to have friends to dinner quite yet, it’s hard to say whether this was plate-licking good, but it certainly came close.

Tenderloin with Red Wine Reduction

Course: Main

Ingredients

• 1 bottle dry red wine

• 4 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed with side of knife

• 1 large red onion, coarsely chopped

• 2 peeled carrots, coarsely chopped

• 3 stalks celery, coarsely chopped

• 1/2 cup dried porcini mushrooms

• 3 sprigs fresh rosemary

• 1 bay leaf

• 1-1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

• 2 to 2-1/2 lb beef tenderloin roast – I recommend asking your butcher to tie it

• black pepper

• olive oil

• 4 tablespoons cold butter, cut up

Directions

• Put the wine, vegetables, porcini, rosemary, and bay leaf in non-reactive saucepan. Bring to boil then reduce heat and simmer uncovered for at least an hour, and until liquid has reduced by half.
• Strain sauce through cheesecloth lined strainer into large bowl . Press vegetables with a spoon to get liquid out off them. Rinse the pan and return the strained sauce to the pan. Bring to boil, then reduce to simmer and cook until reduced to around 1 cup in volume. Add 1/2 tsp salt.
• If your butcher has not tied the tenderloin (I certainly didn’t tie it as well as is shown in the pictures), tie kitchen twine tightly around the roast at about 2 inch intervals so that it keeps its shape.
• Sprinkle the tenderloin with one teaspoon salt and a bit of ground black pepper. Coat bottom of skillet with olive oil, and heat over medium-high heat. When shimmering, place beef into the oil. Pan sear for about 15 minutes total for rare, rolling the meat frequently so that it cooks evenly and the surface is evenly browned. Remove meat from skillet.
• Add sauce to the skillet and bring to boil, scraping up all the nice browned bits from the bottom. While the sauce is boiling, add the chunks of cold butter one at a time, whisking after each addition. Make sure that each piece of butter is well incorporated in the sauce before adding the next. You don’t want to skimp on butter here – this is what makes the sauce plate-licking good.
• To serve, snip the twine from the beef and cut into 1/2 inch slices. Serve drizzled with the wine sauce.