If you eat beef, it would be borderline insanity not to love beef tenderloin sandwiches.  Tenderloin, though expensive, is such a great cut of meat, it’s almost impossible to mess up.  Lots of people marinate them and otherwise season, I go for utter simplicity in my tenderloin and let the meat show its unparalleled flavor.

Costco has a great price on whole beef tenderloins.  You have to trim them yourself.  If the idea of trimming raw beef makes you want to run to the hills screaming like it does to my mother, then you can pay a butcher more to handle that for you.  I chose the biggest tenderloin they had, just over 7lbs.  After trimming, it was probably 6lbs.  We did go through all the tenderloin at the party, as is usually the case with tenderloin.  I would guess I sliced it to about 36 sandwich slices.  I counted at the time, but of course with the crazy time lines, I forgot my actual count.

Really watch your meat temperatures on this recipe.  I can not extol the virtues of a meat and an oven thermometer enough.  My oven is awful, dial setting at least 50 degrees off from my oven thermometer.  And even after correcting and verifying that, I often find wild differences in cooking times from recipes.  Medium rare beef needs to be cooked to an internal temperature of 135.  Another beauty of cooking a whole tenderloin is you get different degrees of doneness within the same roast.  My mother and sister border on the well done side of things and my father and I prefer the medium rare end of the spectrum.  This method works well for us, but if you are looking to serve only medium rare, I would recommend checking the temperature in the smaller and thicker ends, then cutting your roast and removing the smaller half when it reaches 135 then continuing to cook the thicker end until it reaches 135.

Beef Tenderloin Sandwiches

Whole beef tenderloin, trimmed, room temperature

olive oil

kosher salt

fresh ground pepper

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.  Rub tenderloin with olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt and pepper.  Cook tenderloin about 30 minutes, check internal temperature, then roast should finish within about 5 minutes more or so.  Cook to an internal temperature of 135 for medium rare.

Whipped Horseradish Cream

1/2 c. Heavy Whipping Cream

3 tbsp prepared horseradish

Whip cream with wire whisk until it forms soft peaks.  Add horseradish and stir to combine.

Blue Cheese Sauce

1/4 lb. crumbled blue cheese

2/3 c. sour cream

1/3 c. fresh whipped cream

3 tsp worcestershire

kosher salt

fresh ground pepper

Combine ingredients and season to taste.