Eating healthy doesn’t mean omitting all red meat from your diet. In this balanced main course, lean beef tenderloin is served with mashed sweet potato (enlivened with the addition of ranch seasoning), asparagus and mushrooms, all tied together with a vegetable-based sauce made by blending roasted yellow peppers with aromatics, kalamata olives and a scant amount of chicken stock. It’s a fresh turn on steak and potatoes that hits all the flavor notes and texture one craves—without leaving you feeling overly full.
Ingredients
Serves: 4
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 4 portobello mushrooms
• ½ cup olive oil
• 20 medium asparagus spears, woody ends trimmed and discarded
• 2 medium sweet potatoes
• 20 ounces beef tenderloin
• ¼ cup chicken stock
• 2 yellow bell peppers, roasted
• 1 clove garlic, peeled
• ¼ cup curly parsley
• cup pitted olives, preferably kalamata
• 2 tablespoons ranch seasoning
Directions
1
Preheat oven to 375°F. Bring two pots of salted water to a boil. Fill a large bowl with ice water.
2
Trim the veil off the mushrooms and spread the trimmed sides with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Arrange mushrooms on a cookie sheet, trimmed-sides up, and roast until tender (7 to 8 minutes). Remove tray from oven and quarter mushrooms. Set aside.
3
Add asparagus to 1 pot of boiling water and boil until tender (about 2 minutes). Use tongs to transfer asparagus to the ice water to stop them from cooking. Drain and set aside.
4
Add sweet potato to the other pot of water and boil until tender (about 30 minutes). Raise the oven temperature to 425°F.
5
Season beef with salt and pepper. Heat ¼ cup of oil in a wide, deep ovenproof sauté pan over medium-high heat until shimmering but not smoking. Add beef to pan and cook, turning until seared all over, then transfer the pan to oven and cook—about 12 minutes for rare, or longer for well done.
6
Bring the stock to a simmer in a wide, deep sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add peppers and cook until soft, about 10 minutes. Transfer peppers and stock to a blender. Add garlic, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, parsley and olives, and blend until smooth. Set aside, covered.
7
When sweet potatoes are done, drain and let cool. Peel, transfer to a bowl and add ranch seasoning. Mash. Cover and set aside.
8
When beef is done, transfer to a cutting board. After 5 minutes, slice crosswise into 8 pieces.
9
Heat remaining tablespoon of olive oil in a wide, deep sauté pan. Add reserved asparagus and mushrooms and toss to warm through, about 1 minute.
10
To serve, spoon sauce onto 4 plates. Mound some of the sweet potato, arrange 2 slices of beef to one side, and the mushrooms and asparagus on the other side.