Everything's better in bacon fat...

So I love the whole idea of bacon wrapped steak....and chicken, and everything at that matter. I generally find that, unfortunately, just wrapping something in bacon though can lead to texture inconsistency and problems matching the cooking speeds. I'm a girl who likes my steak bloody, so I can't wrap a filet mignon in bacon and wait for the bacon to cook resulting in an overdone steak.

Well, I solved this problem! And it's bacond fat. I cooked a few strips of bacon in a saute pan over high heat until crispy, and then removed the bacon and poured out half of the grease. I then took a filet of beef (filet mignon), and seared for a few minutes on each side, until nice and browned. I then placed in a 350 degree oven just for a few minutes until medium rare. When putting it in the oven, I threw in a few pieces of asparagues, to soak up the rest of the bacon fat :)

After removing the filet, I placed the pan back in the oven so that the asparagus could cook just a little longer.

For sauce, I melted an ENTIRE block of bleu d'auvergne (really potent blue cheese) in a sauce pan and whipped with some heavy cream, salt and pepper. I then finely chopped chives for garnishing.



For plate up, I laid the asparagus as the bed, with the filet laying on top. I spooned on a couple spoonfuls of the sauce (but not too much to overpower any beefy flavor) and sprinkled some of the chopped chives. Finally I laid two pieces of the bacon that I originally fried over the top of the steak. I ended up just dipping those in all the leftover bleu d'auvergne sauce, well, because it was delicious.

I would have prefered for the bacon to be straighter, rather than curled, as to create more of a pork teepee on top of the dish, but unfortunately that's more difficult when frying the bacond. It is easier to shape the bacon as desired when baking it, but I guess that's for next time.

I find pan-roasting steak is the easiest way to get filet mignon to the desired temperature. I always prefer steak as rare as possible, so the cooking process only really lasts a few minutes, and you still get all the beautiful char marks on the top and bottom if you sear them in a grooved pan.

I tried this recipe the next week with a shallot-red wine sauce, and it was ALMOST equally as good. In this particular recipe I added red wine, shallots and garlic to the leftover bacon and steak juices in the saute pan. I let it reduce a while and then served it, shallots and all over the steak.



A good option if you have a difficult friend who isn't adventurous enough to try the blue cheese!

Until next time...put some more fat on your fat!