Filleted Minions

[ellyssian]

Fillet mignon with Béarnaise sauce, served with roasted garlic mashed potatoes, and baked braised asparagus.

Recipes will follow, although you can always cheat on the roasted garlic and the mashed potatoes mostly because that's exactly where I stole borrowed found the recipes I'll be using. And when I write them up, they'll be far less entertaining, if no less delicious.

I'll probably do a separate post about coordinating the meal as well as other posts to keep each of the five recipes separate.

Happy Valentines Day!

EDIT: Turns out the aspasagus* looked a wee bit dry ~ although it did recover nicely and it was only the base that was deaded ~ so I decided to braise rather than bake the spears. Also, we have some white aspasagus in addition to the green, so it's all very exotic and stuff. Also also, there will be photos, mostly because I want to amuse you all with the improvised bain-marie. Also also also, I may or may not take photos of each step, and I may or may not include them here, although I will most likely save them for a cookbook that was requested a while ago. =)

* A Justinism. Because I didn't blog when he was a kid, and he missed out on having any such cute little comments blabbed to everyone, and because he's now not so little, being a licensed driver and all.

Comments

[patrixa.livejournal.com]

It's so funny to see you cooking and eating foods you wouldn't touch when you were a kid.
Like asparagus -- which I've always liked although your Dad didn't.

You are giving me a memory lane trip what with braising, bain-marie, Bearnaise sauce -- before your time memories -- when I taught French cooking at the Boston Center for Adult Ed, when I cooked interesting meals. (Aunt Stella thought I should do a Julia Child type show on Worcester's PBS). Your Dad, followed some time later by you and D, didn't like "foreign stuff" and so I stopped the French, Polish and Italian cooking and went to American ordinary. It was easier, but not as interesting.

[ellyssian.livejournal.com]

Asparagus I've really only liked for maybe the last few years ~ five at most. Tried it for the heck of it as a side dish at Roadies Grill, and I've selected it (when I've had the choice, which isn't often) ever since. Made it once or twice before.

The Béarnaise sauce ~ well, I've liked that since that time Deb and I ate at Dandelion Green and they mixed it into the cheese for their potato skins. That's 100% of the reason why tarragon, chervil, and tarragon vinegar have been components of Deeper n' Ever and baked stuffed potatoes ever since.

This was, however, the first time I've ever attempted to make Béarnaise sauce (or any hot egg sauce, really). It came out very good.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

May I recommend roasted asparagus? It is easy and amazing!

I think I need to buy a few pounds of garlic and roast it now, though.

[ellyssian.livejournal.com]

The recipes I could find for roasted asparagus were variations on what I had been looking to do for baked asparagus ~ although they seem to have more emphasis on oils and so on.

I completely misremember how I had made it before. I think I might have roasted it.

In any case, the braised asparagus wasn't difficult; the only trouble I had with it is that the Béarnaise sauce would have been a bit nicer, maybe, if I had let it sit in the bain-marie a bit longer instead of taking that apart and rinsing out the 10' skillet and using it for the asparagus! =)

[cissa.livejournal.com]

I think I've broiled it, grilled it, and done it in a frying pan. But yum!

I haven't done bearnaise in years, nor hollandaise. However, I do have several Chinese recipes that use eggwhites, so I may do one of them, and then use the yolks for such a thing. YUM.

While watching Top Chef last night, I started meditating on the goodness that could result from a Eggs Benedict variant, in which the muffin (I HATE English muffins for some reason, though I ought to try homemade sometime) and ham was replaced with a crispy disc of corned beef hash, and a poached egg, the sauce, and roasted asparagus were added. I think that would rock, and I've not heard of such a thing before.

[ellyssian.livejournal.com]

I'm not much for prominent egg dishes, generally. I'm fine with them as an ingredient, but other than an occasional omelet (or, really, scrambled eggs with stuff added) I avoid them.

Which is really funny given the name of the recipe I'm about to post. =)