I love sharing recipes for cooking a special Valentine’s Day dinner at home. Last year I wrote about making Braciole, and it is has become one of the most popular recipes on this site. This year I decided to try to recreate the steakhouse experience at home, and I made filet mignon with a garlic mustard sauce. It seems like a fitting meal for Valentine's Day, and steak with a delicious sauce is always a nice treat.
I served the filet with a side of steakhouse style twice baked potatoes and roasted broccoli. This meal works because you aren’t doing too many things at once. The potatoes go into the oven for an hour before being scooped out and mashed. Once the potatoes go into the oven for another 20 minutes you prep the broccoli and put it in the oven with the potatoes. Then it is time to focus on the steak.
The garlic mustard sauce comes together quickly while the steak is resting. The total preparation time for the meal is 90 minutes, but only 30 minutes are active preparation time. It's the type of meal you can casually prepare while sipping wine with your significant other.
I know that cooking steak can be intimidating. You want to get it to the right temperature without overcooking it. This recipe calls for cooking the steak in a pan over the stove, which reduces the risk of overcooking the steak while also making it possible to use the pan drippings as the base for the garlic mustard sauce. The garlic mustard sauce compliments the filet without overpowering it. It brings out the boldness of the beef while adding a touch of mustard and hint of garlic. Charles loved it.
If you prefer to go out to celebrate Valentine's Day, here are my restaurant recommendations. Have you made plans to celebrate Valentine's Day?
Ingredients
- 2 Beef Tenderloin Steak
- ½ tsp. Salt
- ½ tsp. Ground Pepper
- 2 tbsps. Butter
- 2 tbsps. Stone Ground Mustard
- 2 small Cloves of Garlic minced
- 2 tbsps. Heavy Cream
- ¼ tsp. Thyme
Instructions
- Pat the steaks dry with a paper towel. Season the steaks with the salt and pepper, and rub it into the beef. Melt the half of butter in a pan over high heat. Place the steaks in a hot pan and cook for 3 ½ minutes.
- Add the remaining butter to the pan, and flip the steaks and cook for another 3 ½ minutes. Remove the steak from the pan, and let it rest for 5 minutes. You want the steak to reach 130 degrees. You can check the temperature by inserting a meat thermometer into the middle of the steak. The temperature of the steak will rise about 5 degrees as it rests, and 135 degrees will give you a perfect medium rare steak.
- Keep the drippings from the steak in the pan, and add the stone ground mustard, garlic, heavy cream, and thyme to the pan.
- Whisk the sauce together and simmer slowly for 5 minutes while the steak rests, then serve the steak with the sauce.
