Beef Tenderloin with a side of pasta
The meat is from Kaune’s – our local family-owned market. About $12 for a tenderloin piece that we split. After purchase it was unwrapped and allowed to dry age until we cooked it a few nights later.
Set at #6 on our stove, Steuart heated a tablespoon of pork fat a 4-inch-high sided pan( to avoid splattering. Pan is heavy duty but one would more often grab it if one needed a wide sauce pan). He seared the meat on one side for 2 minutes, then turned it and seared the other side similarly. Oven had been pre-heated to 250 degrees F. Meat was removed from pan to a oven tolerent plate. Wine (a lessor quality but still nice) was poured into sauce pan to deglaze the pan, and reduced until slightly syrupy. Sauce added to warm serving platter and meat was cut in half and served.:
Wine is a Nebbiolo purchased from the Garagiste: $18.74.
2018 Platinetti Guido ‘Pieleo’ Barbera Colline Novaresi an Alto Piemonte wine – northern and high altitude regions of western Italy. ( from the Garagiste:
From another terraced, rocky and sand-laced parcel (that’s a sub-plot of Ronco al Maso cru in Ghemme), the old-vine Nebbiolo (40-50+ years of age) literally explodes from the bottle and glass with a saturated (but low alcohol) beaming/gleaming dense cherry color and wafting aromatics that channel Morgon “Cote du Py” as well as the highlands of wild-flower Piedmont (against a background tinge of rosewater, fresh tobacco and fast-running spring water as it cascades down the hillside).
A captivating Nebbiolo that is slathered in stone, it’s not often that I succumb to actually drinking a subject that I’m “tasting” for evaluation but this wine was darn near impossible to spit. It’s a breath of fresh air (literally) without attitude and it is unlike anything from the environs of Alba – I think you will have the same reaction that I did – diehard Nebbiolo fan or about to become one..
Our Tasting notes:
Look: Purple in color with rich medium to full body.
Smell: Ripe cherries, smoky, pepper
Taste: Medium-High tannin, high acidity and a richness like cheese taste, of course complex fruit flavour, dry, salt and peppery.