How to cook the perfect beef filet

Consistently producing a perfectly cooked filet can be a challenge, but chef David Raines, owner of The Flora Butcher, makes it easy.

Raines, a chef who trained at Michelin Star restaurants said start with a quality cut of meat. Raines prefers an 8 ounce center cut filet with a good amount of fat marbling throughout the meat. He demonstrated using a wagyu filet, which is prized for tenderness, marbling and flavor.

Raines allows his filets to come to room temperature for one hour and seasons them with only kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.

"If you've got a good cut of meat, you want to taste that," Raines said. "You don't want to taste garlic powder and onion powder and other things. And I'm going to finish it with a compound butter, so there's a lot going on already."

Raines heats a cast iron skillet over high heat with a mix of olive and canola oils in it. Raines said he adds the canola oil because it raises the smoking point of the oils. Raines said he uses cast iron because it holds heat better and cools down less than stainless steel when he adds the steaks.

When the oil is hot he adds the steaks and sears them for two minutes per side.

"I'm not looking to cook them," Raines said. "I just want a nice crust."

Once seared, he puts them on a metal plate or baking sheet and then places them in a convection oven preheated to 400 degrees. He takes them out after eight minutes for a medium rare steak. Raines said because he uses a commercial convection oven, the steaks cook faster than a residential unit, so cooking time at home may need adjusting.

Once the steaks are done, he presses pats of compound butter between sheets of wax paper to the diameter of the filets and places them on top while they rest at room temperature for five minutes. He said that by pressing the butter to the diameter of the steaks, it evenly distributes the seasonings on top so they can be tasted in each bite.

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