A bag of ugliness

I picked up a juicy bag of tomatoes from the Farmer's Market on Sunday. Sounds lovely, no? Actually, it was a pretty ugly bag of bruised tomatoes. I would be lying if I didn't mention the little fuzzy stuff growing on a couple of them. When I say juicy, I do mean juicy. The juice was floating around in the bag along with the tomatoes. The fellow gave them to me for dirt cheap (as he should!) so I'm living on the wild side!

My plan was to do a simple ragu because I figured I had better cook the buggery out of these ugly things so I bought a few pounds of tenderloin. I normally use some kind of eye-round-roast thing but the supermarket only had giants ones (and giant = expensive). I forget how many pounds it was but the loin I got was pretty small (and cheap). But then! This afternoon, my wife reminded me that she wasn't home for dinner tonight. So I thought, I have some tenderloin... steak au poivre! Here's my version.

1. Cut a couple of medallions about 2 inches thick.
2. Salt (kosher) liberally all over
3. Put pepper grinder in a super coarse setting and grind all over top and bottom faces. Give it a little pat to help the crust stick.
4. Heat olive oil and butter in a frying pan over medium heat until very hot
5. Cook medallions until internal temperature reaches 140 degrees turning once (about 4 minutes per side)
6. Remove meat and rest. Discard oil
7. Deglaze with about half a wine glass of alcohol -- I used my favourite two-buck-chuck from Trader Joes. Try to ignite. Fail. I think I need a higher alcohol content liquid.
8. Add heavy cream and reduce till sauce coats the back of a spoon
9. Add a little more butter to make it look pretty
10. Put medallions back in the sauce and serve

So easy and so good!


As for the ragu, I kept it pretty simple too.

1. Cut the (remaining) loin into chunks
2. Brown in hot olive oil and remove
3. Pour off excess oil and deglaze with half a bottle of red wine
4. Reduce by about a third
5. Season with salt and pepper. I also had some rosemary on hand
6. Throw in some hearty vegetables (carrots and onions today --it's all I had) and the loin
7. Bring to boil again. Cover and simmer until meat is super-tender (about 1.5 hours)

But what about the ugly tomatoes? Continue!
8. In a different pot, I cooked some garlic in olive oil over low heat. When they took a little colour, I added the ugly tomatoes chopped into chunks. Even though I cut out the ugly bits, they were still pretty ugly because they were so soft. Cover, reduce to simmer, and cook for a long time (an hour or so) or until they fall apart. I cooked off some of the extra liquid as well.

Later...
9. Shred the meat and remove the rosemary stalks
10. Pour the tomato sauce into the braising liquid
11. Add a little can of tomato paste
11. Reduce a little bit. Adjust seasoning and throw in a little more wine. That's about it!

This will be lunch (and probably dinner) tomorrow. I'll warm it and boil pasta when I get there. Top with cheese. I have some pecorino romano in my fridge. Now that I think of it, the cheese is a little ugly as well. Maybe no cheese :)