Published November 1, 1998.
Our best roast beef tenderloin recipe produced an evenly cooked piece of meat graced with a rich brown crust to enhance its flavor. To even the shape of the tenderloin (which promoted even cooking), we folded the narrow end (called the tip end) under and tied it to bulk it up to almost the same girth as the chunky end (called the butt tender). To enhance the flavor of the meat in our tenderloin recipe, we roasted the beef at 425 degrees to produce both a beautiful crust and a pink interior.
To age the tenderloin, set it on a rack over a roasting pan and refrigerate it 3 to 4 days. If you do age the meat, you can reduce the post-roasting resting time to 15 to 20 minutes. To give the tenderloin a more pronounced pepper crust, increase the amount of pepper to 6 tablespoons and use a mixture of strong black and white and mild pink and green peppercorns. Be sure to crush the peppercorns with a mortar and pestle or with a heavy-bottomed saucepan or skillet. Do not use a coffee or spice grinder, which will grind the softer green and pink peppercorns to a powder before the harder black and white peppercorns begin to break up.
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