David prepared this recipe last year for our staff dinner, and this year I used it for our family Christmas dinner. I decided it’s a new tradition, because I was in the kitchen very little, and the cook time was amazingly fast: 45 minutes for a 5.5 lb tenderloin, which was about 5 minutes too long for medium. The whole roast was almost all well done. Amazing??
6-7 lb beef tenderloin
1 T olive oil
Crust Dough: (I mixed the dough together Christmas eve afternoon)
Chop and set aside:
1/2 cup fresh herbs (parsley, thyme, sage)(David used sage, rosemary and thyme)
In a large mixing bowl, mix together:
5 cups flour
3 cups kosher salt
3 T fresh ground pepper
In a small bowl, whisk together:
5 egg whites
1 1/2 cups water
Add egg white mixture to flour mixture, along with 2 T of the chopped herbs. Combine with a potato masher until mixture comes together. Knead on a floured surface for about 1-2 minutes. Transfer to a Ziploc bag and let it rest 4-24 hours, at room temperature.
Christmas Day:
Using high heat and a griddle or large skillet, oil the tenderloin and sear it on all sides. Takes about 10 minutes. Let it cool a few minutes so it doesn’t melt the dough.
Transfer dough to a floured surface and roll to 3/16″ thickness, about a 24″ x 18″ rectangle. Trim away extra dough.
Place tenderloin on dough. Sprinkle herbs on top of meat. Bring up one side of dough to top center, folding back about an inch. Bring the other side up to center, and overlap dough about an inch, standing up, and pinch it together. Fold ends and pinch together. (By this time, I had a few holes, so I got a glass of water, dipped fingers in water, smeared it around the hole, took a scrap of dough, smeared a little water on it, and glued patches of dough on the rolled up tenderloin. Doesn’t matter if it looks pretty, the dough goes in the trash!! Just cover the meat!)
Use a couple of spatulas to place it on a jelly roll pan, and place in preheated oven, 400 degrees. Bake to 125 degrees, and take out of oven. Let it rest 30 minutes to 1 hour.
Cut the dough apart and remove the roast. Slice and serve! It’s delicious!
TIPS:
Use a meat thermometer! The recipe says baking a 6-7 lb roast to 125 degrees takes 20-30 minutes. We wanted ours both medium and well done. Ours was 5 1/2 lbs, 140 degrees in the small skinny end and 120 degrees in the big fat end in only 45 minutes. The recipe says it will continue to cook another 10-15 degrees as it rests. Our rested about 35 minutes, was up to medium well (150-155 degrees) when David carved it, and by the time we carried it to the table, was well done!!! It cooked much more than 15 degrees while resting. Next time I will take it out at about 110 degrees for medium, which cookbooks say is about 140-145 degrees. Well done is 160 degrees and above, which ours ended up to be.
So, go from there!! The meat was so tender, even though well done, and so flavorful and moist, because of the dough. Even the little kids ate it, and sandwiches were great the next day!
Try it with pork tenderloin with rosemary, or with eye of round beef roast. Also, remember, Carfagna’s usually has beef tenderloin on sale the week before Christmas. We paid $8.79/lb, Giant Eagle was $17/lb!! Costco was $12, but untrimmed and untied. Take cash and go to Carfagna’s!!
