Holiday Wagyu Beef Tenderloin Roast Kit

Holiday Wagyu Beef Tenderloin Roast Kit

Caroline built this kit around a simple conviction: the roast should be the easiest thing on your holiday menu to get right. Beef tenderloin has always been the forgiving cut. It roasts evenly, it carves cleanly, and it holds at the table while everyone finds their seat. Altair’s grass-fed Wagyu gives it the marbling a conventional tenderloin never has. Two packs of Campo Grande Ibérico bacon wrap the whole roast in smoke and slowly rendering fat while it cooks. And while the roast rests, the demi-glace turns the pan into a sauce that tastes like you spent two days on it.

Inside the Kit

Altair 100% Grass-Fed Wagyu Tenderloin
Altair starts with Tajima Wagyu bloodlines crossed onto British and European dams, then raises the cattle on open pasture and finishes them on grass. That gives a normally lean cut real Wagyu marbling, along with the clean, mineral finish you only get from grass. Each medallion you carve at the table has a buttery give that an ordinary filet only hints at.

Campo Grande Ibérico Bacon, 2 packs
Cut thick from Campo Grande Ibérico pork belly, lightly smoked over applewood, and cured with sea salt and celery powder. The fat makes the difference. Ibérico fat is rich in oleic acid and softens at a lower temperature than ordinary pork fat, so it starts basting the tenderloin early in the roast and keeps going until it comes out of the oven.

Demi-Glace, 2 lb
Roasted veal and beef bones, roasted vegetables, mushrooms, and garlic, reduced until the sauce coats a spoon. It contains no roux, no thickeners, and no added salt, so you season it for your own table. Warm it in the roasting pan with a splash of red wine and a knob of cold butter, and you’ll have a sauce people pass around twice.

How to Cook It

Pat the tenderloin dry and salt it generously. Tuck the thin tail end underneath so the roast is the same thickness from end to end, which is what keeps it evenly pink all the way through. Drape the bacon over the top in overlapping strips and tie it with kitchen twine every couple of inches.

Roast at 425°F until the thickest part reads 120 to 125°F, about 35 to 45 minutes depending on size. Let it rest for 15 minutes; it will finish at a perfect medium-rare. Make the sauce in the same pan while you wait. If you’d like the bacon crisper, give it two minutes under the broiler at the end, and stay close.

You’ve cooked holiday dinners before. This one comes with the hard parts already handled.