Crab-Stuffed Beef Tenderloin

Early November. The cooler weather is settling in for what passes as Houston winter. The smoker compound running daytime hours. The cookbook photography wrapped two weeks ago. The next major project on my own list is Tyler's and my private cookbook — the father-son book we agreed to in August. Tyler and I talked Friday on the phone for two hours. We laid out the structure: thirty recipes, six chapters, family photographs, no editor, no publisher, just us. The book will be self-printed in a small run for the family. Tyler is going to do the layout because he has the engineering brain for it and the patience. I will write the headnotes. We will both contribute the recipes. The first drafts due to each other by January.

Made bún riêu (the Vietnamese crab and tomato noodle soup, the November-into-Tet specialty) Sunday with Mai's recipe. Mai came over for it. She tasted. She approved. The bún riêu is now also in my repertoire as a confirmed Mai-blessed dish. Mai has been giving me her recipes one at a time for a year and the inventory has expanded. The hand-off is happening in real time. I write each recipe down in a notebook I keep in the kitchen. The notebook is a backup of Mai's memory. The cookbook will have the public versions. The notebook has the private ones — the sub-techniques, the substitutions, the warnings, the "if it's not working it's probably the fish sauce."

Emma is recovering well. Two weeks postpartum, sleeping in shifts, but stable. Ava has been a big-sister role model — quietly, with the seriousness of a three-year-old who has been promoted. Ruby has been an easy baby so far. Easy is relative. Newborns are not easy. But Ruby cries less than Marcus did and sleeps in slightly longer stretches than Jade did. Emma is a third-time-mother's-luck recipient.

The Sunday bún riêu used a pound of crab, and there was something in handling it — the picking, the patience, the way crab demands you slow down — that made me want to give it a second life before the week was out. Crab-Stuffed Beef Tenderloin is the kind of recipe that belongs in a book exactly like the one Tyler and I are building: it looks like it requires a professional kitchen but it doesn’t, it rewards the cook who pays attention, and it’s the sort of dish that makes people at the table feel genuinely celebrated. Mai would approve of the instinct, if not the fusion.

Prep Time: 25 min | Cook Time: 45 min | Total Time: 1 hr 10 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 whole beef tenderloin (about 2 1/2 to 3 lbs), trimmed and butterflied
8 oz lump crab meat, picked over for shells
4 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup finely chopped shallots
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon Old Bay seasoning
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
Kitchen twine for tying

Instructions

Prepare the filling. In a medium bowl, combine the softened cream cheese, crab meat, shallots, garlic, parsley, Dijon mustard, Old Bay seasoning, and red pepper flakes. Fold gently until just combined — you want the crab to stay in visible chunks. Season lightly with salt and set aside.
Butterfly the tenderloin. Place the tenderloin on a cutting board. Using a sharp knife, cut lengthwise down the center, stopping about 1/2 inch from the bottom so it opens like a book. Gently press it flat.
Fill and roll. Spread the crab filling evenly over the interior of the butterflied tenderloin, leaving a 1/2-inch border on all sides. Carefully roll the tenderloin back into a tight log shape and tie with kitchen twine at 1 1/2-inch intervals to hold its form.
Season the exterior. Rub the outside of the rolled tenderloin with 1 tablespoon olive oil, then season generously with kosher salt and cracked black pepper on all sides.
Sear. Preheat oven to 425°F. Heat the remaining tablespoon of olive oil in a large oven-safe skillet over high heat. Sear the tenderloin on all sides until deeply browned, about 2–3 minutes per side.
Roast. Transfer the skillet to the preheated oven and roast until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the thickest part (not in the filling) reads 130°F for medium-rare, approximately 20–25 minutes. Tent loosely with foil and rest 10 minutes before slicing.
Slice and serve. Remove twine, slice into 1-inch medallions, and arrange on a warm platter. Garnish with additional chopped parsley if desired.

Nutrition (per serving)

Crab-Stuffed Beef Tenderloin — The Crab That Carried Two Recipes at Once