Cypher: You know, I know this steak doesn't exist

I know that when I put it in my mouth

The Matrix is telling my brain that it is

juicy and delicious.

Oliver: Hey, what's up guys welcome back to Binging with Babish where this week we are wrangling a whole beef tenderloin.

At least, that's what I think it looks like Cypher is eating in that fancy

harp-infested restaurant. Now this particular whole tenderloin has been trimmed and tied by my butcher

But I'm going to remove the ties and cut it into three pieces so I can show you how to prepare it

three different ways, not to mention show you how to truss a whole roast.

First, we're going to tie a knot on a loop at the end of our roast and then begin making a loop with the string

like that, slipping it underneath the bottom of the roast to your next desired anchor point and pulling it tight

Why truss a roast? Well, as you can see, it's a little misshapen and trussing it helps even out the overall width of the meat,

helping it cook more evenly.

Now, I'm going to go ahead and cut this into two roasts

and one single filet mignon. This way we can try out a couple different cooking techniques

First, we have to finish

trussing our roast. We're gonna do that by pulling the twine underneath the roast, cutting it, and beginning to thread it under the bottom side of

all the loops that we tied earlier. Pull the whole thing nice and tight and then at the end of the roast we've got the

original string from the beginning of the process that we're going to

Simply tie together with the bottom string and there you have it: a lovely little package of beef ready to be hand-delivered

to your mouth. So we've got our trussed thicker sort of oblong roast here

We'll try reverse searing that and then we've got the center cut roast, which is a lot more consistent

In its shape and therefore doesn't really need to be trussed. And then, if you don't feel like spending

$120 on a roast, you've got our single filet. All of which we're going to salt liberally with kosher salt, some fresh ground pepper

We're gonna place on a rack and refrigerate overnight to help desiccate the exterior and give us a better crust down the line

Steak day: 24 hours later, and the exterior of our roasts are significantly drier.

That's gonna help us get better browning and better flavor.

Also, I'm gonna truss this other roast because I learned a quick and easy technique last night in my jammies

We're simply going to wrap the twine lengthwise around the roast

and then begin wrapping the roast width-wise in a spiral,

thus a bit more quickly and easily

wrapping up and evening out the shape of our beef. Once you got the whole thing wrapped,

just cut the string, tie a little knot, and boom! Easy as pie —or beef. Easy as beef™.

2018 Babish Enterprises. All right, so let's start off with our traditional sear and roast technique

I'm heating some vegetable oil in a stainless steel roaster until it just starts to smoke and then dropping our beef inside

Let it sit for

Solid 2 or 3 minutes because we want to develop some good color on the outside of this roast. I feel like I'm saying roast

too much. From now on I'm gonna call this Julio. We're going to insert our probe into *laughing* Julio *chuckles*

Ok nevermind. We're not gonna call it Julio.

Insert our probe into the roast and get it into a 450°F oven. In the meantime,

I have microwaved some Cipollini onions for 1 minute

I'm now going to toss them a little bit of vegetable oil and then dump them onto a preheated

baking sheet so we can get some brown going right away

This is gonna make a nice little

topping for our steak. Throw these back in the oven, roast for a few minutes, flip once they get a little bit of color on them

And try not to eat them all before your steak even comes out of the oven. This guy is sitting at

114 °F internal; it has a lovely brown crust.

Sorry, I'm getting excited. Optionally, you can make good use of the fond in the bottom of this pan. Drop in some grated

shallots, some chicken stock, some red wine; Boil it down to a syrupy consistency,

turn off the heat, and add a nice pat of butter.

Whisk until you have yourself a lovely little pan sauce

then set that aside because Julio's been waiting for 10 minutes to be untied,

so it's time to slice him open and see if we did our job right.

There we go: perfect medium-rare Julio. But, as you can see, the traditional sear and roast technique causes a pretty huge gradation from

medium-rare to well done towards the outside edge and sure, it looks very pretty all plated up and tastes great.

For this next roast we're going to try reverse searing: that is, inserting our temperature probe into, let's call him Troy, and

placing him in a 225 °F oven for two to three hours or until Troy also reaches an internal temperature of

115 °F. Then we are going to sear the exterior, hence the name reverse sear

And then we've got this nice fond on the bottom the pot, so let's make a little bit of mushroom sauce.

I'm just tossing in a few mushrooms, sautéing them, adding some thyme,

some crushed garlic and then deglazing with some sherry and some chicken stock, letting that reduce to a syrupy consistency,

turning off the heat and adding a pad of butter. (H)whisking until (h)well combined and, again, setting aside because it's time to carve.

Let's see how Troy's looking. Rosy medium rare edge to edge. You can see that

There is barely any

Gradation in doneness. Now it looked like Cypher was eating one huge hunk of roast so that's how I'm gonna serve it.

Won't hear me complaining about eating a whole half of a Chateaubriand

And don't forget to garnish with parsley just like in the movie. Then, wax poetic about how we all might be living in a simulation

before digging in and enjoy. Now sure this roast cooked much more evenly

But I kind of like a little variety in the chew of different bites of my tenderloin

So let's try the Gordon Ramsay: straight-up pan-seared filet mignon. After we've formed a nice crust on both sides of the filet,

we're going to add a garlic clove, a little bit of thyme, and a little bit of chicken stock

Reduce the heat and let the steak come up to temp while we prepare our gremolata

Which is simply about equal parts of chopped parsley,

capers and lemon zest. Then my man Gordon slices the beef across the grain, which is a good idea,

seasons with a healthy sprinkling of gremolata

and then spoons a bit of the sauce from the pan around the steak along with a good drizzle of olive oil.

Huh, looks pretty good. That Gordon Ramsay guy really knows what he's doing. And sure, it's got that little gradient from

medium-rare to well done, but, again, that's what I like

Now, I made this thing off camera so you're just gonna have to trust me

when I say that it entered the "Clean plate club."

[Outro music]