There is as much room to roam between all of the steak cuts in creation as there is on a sweeping cattle ranch itself. For every hunk of chuck that’s best for your burger blend, there’s a skirt or flank steak that’s terrific for taco night. But those particular picks more typically appear as ingredients, rather than as show-stopping mains. So it tracks like hoof prints on the plain that an expressive celebrity chef like Gordon Ramsay would prefer a selection that speaks for itself.
“Filet of beef, one of my favorite cuts of all time,” the Scottish food world personality declared in an erstwhile episode of one of his many television programs, “The F Word” (via YouTube). Stateside, a filet of beef will be virtually indistinguishable from its more locally familiar moniker, the filet mignon. Both cuts are butchered from prized sections of the tenderloin whether you’re in the United Kingdom or the United States. And anything prized, of course, comes at a price. Being that there is but one tenderloin per cow, and that it happens to be harvested from one of the most sedentary (and thus tender, as the greater name implies) parts of the animal, it has a higher market value than more abundant swaths of bovine. And once you’ve paid that premium, you really don’t want to mess it up.
What separates filet mignon from the rest of ’em, and some cooking tips
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If you’re used to judging a steak’s worthiness by its beautiful marbling like you would with a T-bone or a porterhouse, these fine filets present quite the curveball: They’re hardly marbled at all. That means that, instead of the crucial fat that gives those other sensational steakhouse cuts their fantastic flavor (while also aiding moisture), the filet mignon’s savory taste is a little bit more subtle, and its near-melting texture comes from the tenderloin’s relative disuse. This also means that you neither need nor want a marinade to break it down at all, as the flavors would be intrusive in this case rather than additive.
All a lovely filet really needs is salt, pepper, oil, and a hot pan to truly sing. We wouldn’t go much farther than the bit of garlic and herbs that Gordon Ramsay uses in his segment on “The F Word,” where he also adds a splash of chicken stock for extra moisture insurance. The filet mignon is also an excellent candidate for a simple butter baste and an ice cold martini on the side.
