- If you love to eat filet mignon,
I'm gonna show you have to perfectly cook one on the grill.
(upbeat music)
Filet, also known as beef tenderloin,
is kind of a leaner cut.
I'm gonna put a little bit of oil on the outside of this.
This will also help to adhere the seasoning to the steak.
I'm gonna season it real liberally with salt and pepper.
Then I'll give it a flip.
Try and get any residual seasonings
and oil up off that plate.
Give the other side just another gentle splash.
Again, liberal with the salt.
And now we're gonna get 'em onto the grill.
I got the grill high heat, the coals have ashed over.
I'm gonna get this onto the hottest part of the grill.
(meat sizzling)
I also have a zone over here,
where there's not a whole lotta coals.
It's kinda a cooler zone because these steaks
are really thick.
What's gonna happen here is once you get this nice,
beautiful sear on each side,
you'll probably have to pull 'em off the high heat,
put the lid on and let 'em cook through.
At this point, your grill will be acting like an oven
to help finish cooking these through,
because of the thickness of the steak,
the direct heat isn't gonna take you the whole way there.
I'm gonna check on these guys.
Now, they're starting to get away
from the grill on their own.
I'm seeing some grill marks
but it's not that 100% sear that I'm looking for.
This guy's still a little bit stuck.
They're almost there,
but I'm gonna give 'em a couple more minutes.
I don't wanna fuss with them too much.
We're gonna go in for the rotate.
This guy, you're getting a nice sear on that.
The goal here is a 90 degree rotation.
Same with this one.
Up 90 degrees.
These may not get perfect grill marks,
sometimes filets will get more of an overall sear
on the grill, than a perfect grill mark.
But, they're starting to get that nice sear.
I've let these go for a couple more minutes
after I rotated 'em, and they're getting a nice crust.
Now, they're not getting super, super solid grill marks,
but all that really matters when you're cooking a steak
like this, is getting that crust.
You can just see that sizzling, right on the top.
That means that this coal, this radiant heat
coming off these coals is just blasting these,
getting a nice sear,
developing a lot of flavor on this side.
And I'm gonna give them a quick rotate.
And now the reason I'm rotating with these,
isn't necessarily to have perfect diamond grill marks,
Because you may not be getting these perfect grill marks.
It's really just so that these steaks
aren't sitting on the grates in one spot for too long.
By giving them that rotate,
in ensures that you're getting an even sear
and not some really hard char in certain spots.
I'm gonna go in and check the temp at this point,
because I know they gotta be getting a least
somewhere closer to our desired doneness.
I'm going in and right now, I'm at 109 degrees.
At this point, things happen fast.
I wanna get it off the direct heat
and get 'em over to this cooler zone
to help cook 'em through.
Anytime you start hitting that 100 degree temperature,
there's a lot of things going on with that steak.
So the temperature's gonna rise quickly.
At this point I wanna get 'em off the direct heat
because I wanna control how fast
they get to my desired doneness.
I'm going to 125 degrees, so that I can pull 'em off
and let 'em rest for a few minutes.
And then they'll be a perfect medium rare.
At this point it's really important
to just to stay by your grill.
(grill lid clanking)
You don't wanna let these ride for too much longer.
Like I said, they go up in temp pretty quickly.
So, gonna temp this guy, yeah.
These guys are ready to go.
So now these will continue to cook a little bit further
towards that 130, 135 zone that I'm looking
for a medium rare.
Now we'll let 'em rest for five to 10 minutes.
And then we're ready to serve 'em to our guests.
Now that's a really simple way
to perfectly cook a filet mignon.
If you like this video, remember to watch other tips
from the Test Kitchen.
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