MERLOT SAUCE FOR FILET MIGNON RECIPES

Steps:

• Step 1: Place a large heavy-bottomed pan over medium/high heat and melt in 2 Tbsp butter and 1 Tbsp oil. Add thickly sliced mushrooms and cook 5 min until soft. Stir in onion and cook another 3 minutes. Press in garlic cloves then season with 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper and 1 Tbsp fresh thyme. Cook another 2 min, stirring constantly until garlic is fragrant, then transfer the mushroom mixture to a plate. Wipe the skillet clean with a wet paper towel.
• Step 2: Pat dry steaks with a paper towel and season all over with salt and pepper (we use a total of 1 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper).
• Step 3: Place the same pan over medium/high heat and add 2 Tbsp butter and 1 Tbsp oil. When butter is hot and finished foaming, add seasoned steaks to skillet and saute, turning over once with tongs about 3-5 min per side for medium-rare (I cooked 5-6 min per side for medium doneness). If steak is browning too fast, reduce heat to medium. Use tongs to transfer steaks to the plate with mushrooms. Please note that thinner steaks will cook faster and thicker steaks can take longer.
• Step 4: Add 1/2 cup Merlot (any will do) and boil until reduced by half (3 min), scraping the bottom with a spatula to deglaze the pan. Add 1 1/2 cups broth and boil until about 2/3 cup liquid remains (5-6 min). Add 1/2 cup cream and boil until sauce thickens slightly (2 min). Return mushrooms and steak to the pan and heat until warmed through (1 - 2 min). Season sauce to taste with more salt & pepper if desired (I added about 1/4 tsp more salt).
• Step 5: Plate the steak and spoon generous amounts of mushroom sauce over the top.

Steps:

• A seared filet mignon is, without a doubt the most tender of the steaks. It’s cut from the beef tenderloin. A muscle that runs along the back of the cow, which does very little work (relative to the rest of the cow), and that is what makes it so tender. 
It is also among the most lean cuts of beef, with very little inter-muscular fat or connective tissue. That lack of fat means two very important things. First, a more mild flavor; delicious, but nothing that’s going to blow your socks off. And second, a proclivity to feel a bit dry while eating. Fortunately, both of those issues can be greatly improved with the addition of a filet mignon sauce aka, a steak sauce. Now, if you must, you can break out the A1. But you’d be committing a terrible sin. However wonderful, that alpha-numeric sauce may be, if you’re going to pay the big bucks for a prime piece of filet mignon, learn how to cook it perfectly, then I’d really suggest that you take a bit of extra time, to come up with an equally perfect sauce. Below are some of my favorite steak sauces, which work particularly well with filet. Some are very simple. Some a bit more complex. Take note, that one thing almost all of my filet mignon sauces have in common, is a good amount of fat. As I mentioned above, since filet is so lean, it benefits from a bit of fat, like butter or cream.  Leave the more acidic/tangy steak sauces for the fatty cuts, like ribeye. Best Sauces for Filet Mignon Peppercorn (Au Poivre) Sauce Perhaps the most traditional sauce for a filet and a stable for French cooking. I like to use very coarsely crushed black peppercorns, cooked with a bit of shallot and cognac, and then finished with some cream. Béarnaise Sauce Another French sauce, béarnaise has shallots and tarragon as its main flavor components, which are then turned into a thick creamy sauce with the addition of egg yolk and butter. If I don’t have the time to make the real deal, I “cheat” a bit by making a simple tarragon butter. Rosemary Butter Sauce Maitre ‘d butters got very popular in the 80’s. They are a simple combination of butter and “something”. In this case, I finely chop some rosemary and mix it with the butter. Slathering some on a just-cooked filet mignon, letting it melt all over as the steak rests, is a terrific way to add flavor. Blue Cheese Sauce or Crust There are a few different ways to add blue cheese to a filet. The salty, tangy, fatti-ness of the cheese matches perfectly with the lean meat flavors. I usually mix a bit of butter and blue cheese together and allow it to melt onto the steak after cooking, but making a sauce with some cream, or adding some bread crumbs and making a topping during the last few minutes of cooking are also great options. Bordelaise – Red Wine Sauce Red wine & filet mignon go wonderfully well together. So a sauce with a good Bordeaux (cabernet and/or merlot grapes) at its heart is a perfect match. For this sauce, reduce a cabernet based wine with some good beef stock and shallots. Finish with some fresh butter to thicken. Awesome!