45-second window during which you can pull it off the heat and have it be perfectly medium-rare A tenderloin, on the other hand, goes from underdone to overdone in a matter of seconds Not only that, but fat also gives you a nice buffer zone for overdoneness Because fat lubricates and flavors meat, a nicely marbled steak will still taste pretty good even if it’s slightly overcooked Not so for a tenderloin, which turns pasty and chalky when cooked even a shade beyond medium All this is to say that it requires quite a bit of skill and patience to cook a tenderloin steak properly—at least it does if you’re doing it the traditional way The last time I overcooked a tenderloin, I thought to myself, as I often do, “Shouldn’t there be a much easier, more foolproof way to do this?” Indeed there is The problem is that the high unidirectional heat of a skillet or grill makes not overcooking a tenderloin steak a very tough task indeed So I first considered slow-roasting the steaks in a relatively low-temperature 275°F oven until perfectly cooked to medium-rare, followed by a hard sear in a skillet to crisp up the edges and brown them That worked reasonably well, but the window of time for perfectly cooked steaks was still a matter of moments So how I increase that window? I thought to myself Why not just cook the meat as a single large roast, then cut it into steaks? Because of its more limited surface area, a whole roast is far easier to cook evenly than individual steaks, especially when you consider that even with the most careful butchering, not all steaks are going to be of an equal size and shape, making it nearly impossible to cook them all to the exact same degree of doneness A larger roast also has a much bigger window for perfectly cooked meat by sheer virtue of the fact that it cooks more slowly I fired off another round, this time cooking a 2-pound tenderloin roast whole until it reached about 20 to 30 degrees below my desired final temperature of 130°F After removing it from the oven, I sliced it into four evenly sized steaks, gently flattening each one, then seared them in a hot skillet with oil and finished them with butter What resulted were steaks that were perfectly cooked from edge to edge, with a beautifully browned crisp crust—far better cooked than I’d ever managed using the traditional method More even cooking was a happy by-product of the method A steak cooked in the traditional way with high heat from the get-go will end up with a good amount of overcooked meat toward the exterior—raw steaks have to sit in a hot skillet for a good amount of time as they develop a good sear, and all the while, they’re slowly overcooking But a slow- ... than I’d ever managed using the traditional method More even cooking was a happy by-product of the method A steak cooked in the traditional way with high heat from the get-go will end up with a good amount of overcooked meat... get-go will end up with a good amount of overcooked meat toward the exterior—raw steaks have to sit in a hot skillet for a good amount of time as they develop a good sear, and all the while, they’re slowly overcooking But a slow- ... cook them all to the exact same degree of doneness A larger roast also has a much bigger window for perfectly cooked meat by sheer virtue of the fact that it cooks more slowly I fired off another