Filet Oscar

Perhaps this fancy dinner is how to celebrate finally being done with the GRE! This meal is actually from awhile back, but it would have been great to come to after a long and stressful test, that's for sure!

I've been pretty obsessed with the idea of making Filet Oscar since I first heard what it was. Basically it's a filet mignon topped with crab meat, blanched asparagus spears, and bernaise sauce. This is definitely a fancy meal you could cook to impress someone special in your life. It'd make a great romantic Valentine's Day dinner. We, however, ate it just for fun, but it's not a cheap meal by any stretch of the imagination given the ingredients.

We cooked two petit filets to medium rare by searing it on each side on the stove in a cast iron skillet for two minutes in olive oil and butter and then finishing in the oven, wrapped in aluminum foil, at 400° to an internal temperature of 140 for medium rare (approximately 7 minutes or so, but obviously the time will depend on how thick the steaks are). Be sure to let the steaks rest for 10 minutes before cutting into them.

While the steaks are cooking, blanche the asparagus and make the bernaise sauce. To blanche the asparagus spears, drop them into a pot of boiling water for 2 minutes then instantly remove and place in a bowl of ice water to stop from cooking. To make the sauce, boil 1/4 cup white wine vinegar, 1/4 cup dry white wine, 1 shallot, finely chopped, along with a tablespoon of tarragon in a small sauce pan until liquid is reduced to about 2 tablespoons. Then strain into a double boiler and discard solids. Slowly whisk 3 egg yolks into the sauce until it is smooth. Whisk in 6 tablespoons of cubed butter, one piece at at time, until all are fully incorporated. Season with salt and pepper and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. This makes a ton of sauce, but I was unsure how to scale it down, so I made a lot extra!

Plate the steaks, top each with approximately 1/8 pound of fresh crab meat (we used Dungeness), the blanched asparagus, and then liberally soak with bernaise sauce. We managed to cook a pretty darn tasty steak. Not quite up to par with the best steak houses, but considering our resources, we were very pleased. The flavor combination is absolutely perfect, and you'll be wishing the steaks and crab meat were cheaper so that you can could eat this on a regular basis without breaking the bank!