With Avocado Relish and Fresh Tomato Salsa
Fillets of Beef in Ancho Chile Sauce (Sous Vide)
Course: Dinner, Main CourseDifficulty: May be challenging4
servings2.5
hoursNote that this dish has elements that can (and maybe should) be made the day before.
Ingredients
- For the salsa:
4 plum tomatoes, stemmed, finely diced, and briefly strained
¼ of a medium-sized onion, peeled and finely diced
1 small serrano chile, stemmed, seeded, and finely diced
Juice of ¼ lime
Fresh cilantro, chopped
¼ tsp Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Pinch of sugar (optional)
- For the filets:
4 six-ounce beef tenderloin fillets
Peanut oil
Salt
Fresh cilantro, chopped, for garnish
Cojita cheese, crumbled, for garnish
- For the chile sauce:
2 oz. ancho chiles (about 4 chiles)
6 ripe plum tomatoes
½ large white onion, peeled and coarsely chopped
3 garlic cloves, peeled
1 cup chicken stock
¼ tsp cumin
1 Tbs bacon fat or butter
- For the avocado relish:
2 medium-sized avocados
½ red bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and finely diced
½ medium-sized white onion, peeled and finely diced
Fresh cilantro, chopped
½ tsp Kosher salt
Directions
- Make the salsa.
- Combine all ingredients. Taste to correct seasoning. Transfer (with a slotted spoon, optionally) to a sealable container and keep refrigerated until needed.
- Makes 1½ cup.
- Make the filets.
- Prep the sous vide bath to 130°F. Meanwhile, dry the fillets with paper towels. Drizzle lightly with oil. Season generously with salt. Seal into bags on the “normal,” “moist” setting.
- Sous vide the fillets for one hour. Meanwhile, make the sauce and relish. If they aren’t finished and the fillets’ hour is up, let the fillets remain in the bath until you’re ready for them.
- Remove the fillets from the bag, reserving the juices. Dry the fillets thoroughly with paper towels. Preheat a cast-iron skillet to a terrifying heat. Add oil to the pan and sear the fillets. They should sear very quickly – a minute or so. As the fillets sear, use a culinary torch to brown the sides. (Leave the tops as they are.) Remove strings, damnit!
- Ladle reheated sauce into pasta plates. Place a fillet in each plate, un-seared side down. Top with relish and then salsa. Sprinkle with cilantro and cheese. Serve immediately.
- Make the chile sauce.
- Heat a cast-iron skillet. Place the chiles in the dry, hot skillet, and toast, turning occasionally, until fragrant, 5 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat a broiler with the grill pan in a position that will leave the contents of your cast-iron pan about three inches from the flame.
- Off stovetop heat. Remove the chiles from the pan, and when cool enough to handle, pull them apart and discard the stems and seeds. Place into a blender. Set aside.
Place tomatoes, onion, and garlic into the cast iron skillet and place in the broiler, shaking the pan and turning its contents on occasion, until the tomatoes are blackened, 15 minutes. Off heat. - Place the contents of the skillet into the blender. Add chicken stock. Purée until the mixture is smooth with some chunks, about 10 seconds. Pour the mixture into the skillet, bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer until it reaches the consistency of a thick sauce, about 40 minutes. Add cumin. Add salt to taste. Stir in fat. Set aside.
- Makes 2½ cups.
- Make the avocado relish:
- Remove the flesh from the avocado and finely dice it. Add remaining ingredients and toss gently. If not used immediately, cover with a film of olive oil, and then cover with plastic wrap, pressing the wrap right to the relish.
Intro
Fillets of Beef in Ancho Chile Sauce is a swanky reimagining of a bowl chili: instead of cubed beef, it’s filet mignon, and instead of a soup, the fillet forms a tasty little island in pool of rustic, homemade chile sauce. Atop the fillet, the relish and salsa garnishes are both essential and beautiful; they pair perfectly with the rest of the dish.
This is such a perfect meal to serve guests, partly because it’s so restaurant-worthy, but also because most of the components can – and maybe should – be made in advance. The chile sauce will be more delicious the second day, and the beef juices will be just what it needs to thin it out a bit. The salsa is nearly indistinguishable the second day – even if maybe the onion seems a bit stronger. Obviously, the relish is a just-in-time element. It’s easy to hold a sous-vide fillet for a while if need be, but it’s also even easier to move them directly to the refrigerator and sear them cold. Searing will bring the interior to temperature without overcooking it.
Social Learning
It’d be easy to ramp this recipe up to serve six, but you’re going to need some serious space. First, you’ll need to be able to sear all six filets at once. Use two frying pans if you need to. Second, you’ll need a lot of counter space to plate them all.
The Filets
Don’t expect to find fillets that are precisely six ounces. Go larger if you need to, but not smaller. Eight ounces is flat-out opulent. If you go to a butcher, you might find you have a choice in the shapes and sizes of the filets, or they might hand-cut them for you. If so, weight is only one factor. Thickness is equally important. If you filets are less than 1½ inches thick, you’ll have a hard time getting them to be anything but medium or medium-rare. If so, consider a lower sous-vide temperature.
If your fillets are tied, that’s a good thing. It will help them keep their shape during the vacuum sealing process. But then you’ve got to be careful about remembering to cut and remove the strings before you plate the filets.
The Chile Sauce
The chiles will indeed become fragrant as you dry-fry them. They’ll smell like chestnuts roasting on an open fire, which – don’t be alarmed – smells like something’s burning.
Note: because the dish has cold elements, the chile sauce has to be piping hot when you plate it. If you need to serve some of the fillets less rare than others, cook to the same medium-rare sous vide temperature, but allow any fillets you want to be more done, to cook for a few minutes in the sauce after searing.
If you have leftover chile sauce, stir the reserved beef cooking juices into it before refrigerating it.
Serving and Planning Suggestions
You might pair these Fillets of Beef in Ancho Chile Sauce with a beer or tequila. I don’t think it needs sides, except maybe something like individual cornbread loaves or homemade tortillas. If you do want to build it out, instead of sides, consider an appetizer and dessert, either or both of which can be substantial.
You could also build this out by adding cilantro-lime rice. Add it as a small island on top of the chile sauce, and place the filet directly on top of it.
The sous vide provides you with flexibility: if your guests arrive later than you planned for, or if pre-dinner cocktails go on longer than expected, the sous vide will keep the steaks warm for at least an hour.
Fillets of Beef in Ancho Chile Sauce
Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man!, unless otherwise indicated. Thank you, Kesor. This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything.
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Talk about loaded!!!! This delicious dish looks like it has everything. You had me at the beef, but the pile on salsa is awesome!
It is loaded!
As Jeff’s dinner guests last night, we can pay witness to the fact that this is a spectacular culinary offering.
Ah! What a nice thing to say! It was so much fun to have you over!
Ohhh you made me hungry early this morning! this is my type of meat dish!
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😉
What a treat! As you say, this looks very much restaurant quality. Sous vide is good for that. I don’t have one but I have been sous chef during Palm Spring weekend house parties. Back when we could do such “restaurant-quality” dining in the homes of friends. GREG
Those were the days, huh? Well, let’s hope they come back soon.
Wow, Jeff, this is a mouth-watering dish. All the way around — from the perfectly cooked meat and sauce, to the relish and the Cotija (one of my favorite cheeses)! This will be made in my house for sure. Really beautiful. 🙂 ~Valentina
It’s so festive, so extravagant, and so delicious! I hope you enjoy it!
Such an amazing treat! I too had a fillet steak yesterday, but just very basic…with just salt and pepper and cooked to blue… Love that salsa and chile sauce.
angiesrecipes recently posted…Blueberry Kefir Bundt Cake
I love a filet, plain and simple. This is a fun way to eat one, though.
Wowza! This recipe looks amazing! I don’t have a sous vide, but I imagine the relish and sauce are amazing on a seared steak as well! Total over the top! something special for these stay-at-home days.
You could certainly do this without a sous vide!
Holy hell, Jeff. We don’t need restaurants to reopen at all…we just need Casa de Jeff to open instead! This truly is a restaurant quality meal. I love the use of the sous vide here, and filet is one of my favorites. This is perfect for celebrating the long weekend! Also, I didn’t realize chiles smell like chestnuts. That’s my one thing I learned today!
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Thanks, David! I’ll open the restaurant if you’ll agree to cook there. The chiles themselves don’t smell like chestnuts, but when they’re roasting, a kind of burnt smell comes out of the pan that reminds me of chestnuts roasting on an open fire, which if you’ve ever smelled it, is pungent in a half-good, half-not-good way.
Oh baby, that’s my kind of dish. We love sous vide filet, but as it cost about $36 per pound we rarely eat it. But the next time we do, it’s going to be prepared per your Fillets of Beef in Ancho Chile Sauce recipe. Thanks for sharing…
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You won’t regret it!
What an incredible fish, Jeff… when I shop this weekend, I am getting the ingredients. I will have to adjust for the fact that I don’t have sous vide equipment, but I don’t see that as an issue. Also, I have a really nice bottle of red wine from México that I think would pair beautifully with this. I very much look forward to a treat over the weekend.
Enjoy! You’ll have no problem using a traditional cooking method.
What a gorgeous flavorful dish! The sauce itself sounds AMAZING and then when you add the avocado salsa – WOW. My mouth is truly watering right now. Love the recipes. Thanks so much for sharing.
You nailed it – the sauce really is killer, and then it just makes the best base for the dish as a whole.
This looks so delicious and the sauce and relish are something I would not have though of for a filet but I love the flavors!
I thought the same thing at first, but they worked beautifully.
Really creative! I love chili, and am always up for chili in any guise. This is fantastic! Kudos. BTW, although I agree with you about homemade stock, have you tried the Minor’s brand of stock/soup base? A bit too salty, but really good flavor. Worth trying (Amazon has it — hard to find in supermarkets).
John / Kitchen Riffs recently posted…Mexican Cucumber, Tomato, and Bean Salad
Ah, thanks for the tip!
That sounds like a delish meal.
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Thanks!
Love the avocado relish and tomato salsa – both are winners! Great recipe and just in time for this weekend!
Thanks!
Wow Jeff, this looks AMAZING! Love anything with ancho chilies, so this sauce is really calling my name! I can almost taste the combo with the avocado relish and salsa. Absolutely delicious!
Thank you, Shannon!
How did i miss this?!! The meal of my dreams. I always have ancho chile paste in my freezer, but I do need to make some sauce with it. I make a lot of filets for my husband, so many that I don’t get any fancier than sautéing mushrooms occasionally. He would love this. Thanks!
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I hope you do make it. It’s such a celebration!
Great idea for a restaurant style meal Jeff. We’re missing not getting out of the house what with everything being shut down here in the UK lockdown. So something like this would make us feel we’re dining out again! I’d have to open a bottle of chateauneuf du pape to go with this too, what a great excuse. Cheers!
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You should! It’ll make you feel good.
Sounds really tasty. And fancy! You could charge a pretty penny for that dish if you had a place of your own…
I have to admit I’ve yet to get the hang of sous vide cooking. I’ve given it a go perhaps two or three times but I just can’t seem to get it quite right. They say you can’t overcook meat with sous vide, well I’m here to tell you they’re wrong about that… lol!
That’s interesting! I wonder what you did?
This recipe looks really fantastic with the avocado and tomato salsa! I love it! Have a nice day!
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Thank you!