SERVES 6 TO 8 AS A MAIN COURSE, 10 TO 12 AS PART OF A MULTICOURSE MEAL
This recipe is a fine example of how a restaurant takes what seems like an ordinary ingredient, like beef, and turns it into something truly extraordinary. This preparation is not at all difficult, but it does mean starting with a whole beef tenderloin. If that frightens rather than inspires, you might simply use the marinade on your next steak dinner: A well-marbled steak marinated for 10 to 20 minutes (depending on thickness) and then seared and roasted (or grilled) in this way is truly delicious.
Running a restaurant, one gets accustomed to buying large, uncut pieces of beef and lamb, judging its freshness from the state of the fat and doing the butchering one’s self. On my rare forays into civilian life (otherwise known as days off), I accordingly patronize butchers where I can see most, if not all, of the beast I am buying. That generally means going to ethnic butcher shops.
Even in our more antiseptic supermarkets, however, there are simple ways to judge freshly cut and properly stored beef and lamb. The piece of whatever you’re eyeballing should look moist and red. It shouldn’t be sitting in its own blood. The fat that rims it should look moist. If anything is dry, gray, or bloody, the meat has been too long from the hoof. Most emphatically, it should have a good, clean smell. Smelly meat is bad meat, at least in my opinion.
1 fresh beef tenderloin, aged (see Aging Beef, page 255)
MARINADE:
1 cup water
½ cup soy sauce
¼ cup mushroom soy sauce
½ cup Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
3 fat scallions, cut into 1-inch nuggets and smashed
3 whole star anise, broken into their 24 points
Several pieces cassia bark or 1 short cinnamon stick, crumbled
Finely pared zest of 1 small scrubbed orange
¼ teaspoon dried red chili flakes
3 ounces Chinese golden rock sugar, smashed (rounded ½ cup bits)
3 large cloves garlic, smashed
6 to 7 quarter-size coins fresh ginger, smashed
2 teaspoons Szechwan peppercorns
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
4 teaspoons corn or peanut oil, for searing
Freshly ground black pepper
Diagonally sliced green and white scallion rings, for garnish
1. Lay the aged tenderloin flat on your cutting board. Separate the small, slender tenderloin fillet from the side of the larger loin; the membrane hugging the 2 together is easily slit. With a sharp knife, carefully trim both pieces of all fat, tendon, and tough silvery skin. Leave the exterior as smooth as possible. Next, cut off the knobby end of the loin where it starts narrowing into a tail. Cut the large loin piece crosswise in half. You will have four pieces of beef.
2. To make the marinade, combine all of the marinade ingredients through the peppercorns in a small non-aluminum saucepan and bring to a simmer over moderate heat. Reduce the heat to maintain a weak simmer and cook, stirring occasionally to dissolve the rock sugar, 10 minutes. Let the marinade cool to room temperature.
3. Put the beef into 1 or 2 deep containers that will hold it snugly. Pour the marinade on top and turn the beef to coat it evenly. Extract the thin tenderloin after 10 minutes. Let the 3 larger pieces of beef marinate for 35 minutes longer; turn them once or twice while marinating. Drain off the marinade. (It may be strained and reused to marinate beef or glaze hamburgers while they cook. Refrigerate it for up to a week, or freeze.)
4. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Move a rack to the top third of the oven.
5. Heat a wok or a large heavy skillet over high heat until hot enough to evaporate a bead of water on contact. Add 1 teaspoon of the oil and swirl to glaze the pan. Heat until nearly smoking. Add the skinny tenderloin first. Use tongs to turn the beef, searing each side until it turns a rich mahogany, about 30 seconds in all. Remove and place on a flat rack fitted in a jelly roll or roasting pan. Sear the other pieces of beef, one by one, cleaning and heating the pan each time and adding oil as above. The larger pieces will each take a minute or so to sear. Make sure the pan and the oil are blazing hot so that you get a dark, flavorful sear. Do not worry if the beef blackens a bit; it will be tasty. Place the pieces on the rack with room between them.
6. Roast the beef until rare to medium-rare, 4 to 5 minutes for the slender tenderloin fillet, 10 to 12 minutes for the end section, and 16 to 18 minutes for the 2 main loin pieces. (The timing will differ depending on the depth of the sear.) To test for doneness, roast until an instant-read meat thermometer inserted into the thickest portion of each piece registers 110°F. The meat will be very rare, optimal for great taste and texture.
7. Let the beef cool on the roasting rack for at least 10 to 15 minutes so the juices gel. Serve freshly roasted, warm, or at room temperature. Slice thinly on the diagonal, embellishing the meat with some freshly ground pepper and a sprinkling of scallion.
We age our own beef in the restaurant, and the result is a richer-tasting meat with an inimitable texture. Doing it at home is easy. There are two ways:
For the first, you will need to pull out the lower shelves in your refrigerator and suspend the untrimmed tenderloin on a stainless-steel S-hook from the top shelf. Place a dish lined with a clean towel underneath the meat to catch the juices as the outside of the tenderloin dries. Leave the beef hanging—it should dangle more or less freely—for two full days, changing the towel once.
For the second method, simply wrap the beef in a clean, lint-free towel and lay it flat in a dish in the refrigerator, turning it twice daily for two to three days and changing the towel once or twice. Either way, the flavor of the beef gains greatly in depth and richness!
MENU SUGGESTIONS: We feature the beef as the centerpiece of a Peking antipasto plate, accompanied by a dip dish of our house or sweet mustard (page 21). To round out the plate, Wild Rice Salad with Ginger-Balsamic Dressing (page 423) or Wok-Seared New Potatoes (page 424) and a salad of baby greens tossed with either of our vinaigrettes would be great. Or, for a taste of cross-cultural delicatessen, stuff the beef and some Ginger-Pickled Red Cabbage Slaw (page 61) inside a hot Sesame-Encrusted Flatbread (page 379) and embellish it with a good schmear of mustard.