Cold Roast Beef Tenderloin with Jellied Horseradish Cream (Page 420)

RECIPE #800!

• Date: Sunday, July 27, 2008 -- 5pm
• Location: Somerville, MA
• Kitchen: Matty's Apartment
• Dining Companions: Matty, Juice, Russ, Grant, Mitch, Carrie, Alex P, Scarecrow, and Paps
• Recipe Rating: B
  

This recipe has been on the list made by the random number generator since April 2007, but I just hadn't found the right occasion to make it. I LOVE beef tenderloin. Usually I eat it warm, but I could probably get on board with slicing it and eating it cold. But topping it with horseradish jello? That just didn't sound good to me. I figured a gathering of drunk guys was sure to consue it though, so I made it for Russ' bachelor party a few weeks ago. This recipe was very easy to put together. First a mixture of sour cream and horseradish was set with some gelatin and chilled until it became nice and gelatinous. Meanwhile, I browned and then roasted a chunk of pepper-crusted beef tenderloin. After being cooked to medium rare the tenderloin was chilled and then sliced, and served with cubes of the horseradish jello. When I was at the store, buying the $27.oo per pound beef tenderloin for this recipe I kept thinking, "I can't believe I am going to top this with horseradish jello!" I was not optimistic. But actually, the horseradish jello wasn't half bad. It was not as gelatinous as I feared it would be. People seemed confused as to what it was, but no one identified it as jello. It had a decent flavor to it (if you like horseradish) and complemented the beef nicely. My real issue with this dish was the following: why would you serve beautiful sliced beef cold? This was an incredibly good beef tenderloin -- it was flavorful and tender. But served cold it was hard to appreciate either of those things. It just tasted like a cold hunk of beef (topped with horseradish jello of course). There was a slice leftover and I threw it in the microwave the next day (sans jello), and even after being microwaved it was vastly superior to the cold version. This recipe could have been awesome had the beef been sliced and served warm and served with a warm, non-gelatinous, horseradish sauce. As it was, it was better than I expected, but I won't be making it again.

The recipe claims to be here, but as of today the URL wasn't working...

This is recipe number 800 in my project! Wow. It is hard even for me to believe that I have gone through 800 recipes in The Book. Craziness!

A few thank-yous: first and foremost thanks to my special gentleman who has eaten more than 450 of those 800 recipes. His open mind and eager palate are huge assets to me in this project. Thanks also to Ana, Mike, Alex, Matt, and Chris, who have all eaten and or assisted with about 100 recipes! This project relies heavily on the willingness of my friends and family to humor me in this big experiment. I am constantly amazed by the number of people who have been a part of this project by eating and/or helping to prepare food from The Book. I am grateful to each and every one of you! As I traveled around the country in the past year a number of people generously shared the use of their kitchens: thanks to Matty, mom, dad, Mike, Tim, V, Shihchi, Dave, Karen, Emilee, and Brian for that. A huge thanks to Mike, Emilee, David, Matty, Vero, mom, Brad, and Deniz, who have all gotten me lovely gifts off the Gourmet Project Wishlist. Thanks to Alex, as always, for the wonderful Project Index that he maintains. And finally, thanks to all my online supporters, who give me lots of encouragement and support which I value greatly!

So how am I feeling about the next 100 recipes? Optimistic! One of the many things I did on the long car ride over the last couple days was to flip through The Book and peruse some of the recipes I haven't made yet. And you know what? There is a lot of good stuff still in there! I have 493 recipes left to go, and I am positive that there are at least 100 more delicious ones to be made!